Slim Jim

I think (I say genuinely and not in a ‘I’m definitely right’ way) the fundamental issue here is that you are misunderstanding what the worker/segment rating the game gives you actually represents. I say that with the obviously huge caveat that I too may also be misunderstanding what Adam has intended in the rating calculations but maybe this will help. Regardless of whatever stat/skill an individual worker’s rating is influenced by, their final rating (and certainly the final overall rating of the segment) is a representation of how much the audience engaged with/responded to their performance (and the segment overall for the overall final rating). If you create a video of completely unknown nobody standing around looking hot and then create a video of, to use your example, Melissa McCarthy doing the exact same thing unironically trying to look hot and upload them both to YouTube/TikTok/your choice of social media, which one is going to get talked about most? Get the most attention? Move the needle? It is a complete waste of Melissa McCarthy’s strengths as a performer but it is going to get a bigger reaction. Sex Appeal will have less of an impact on that reaction than the random 0 pop outrageously attractive woman but it will garner a bigger overall reaction. Relative to Melissa’s popularity, that will be a negative reaction because it isn’t her strength so contextually it is a bad outcome. Fewer people want to see her again because they didn’t enjoy her performance so her performance rating will be lower than it could be if you played to her strengths and obviously that will then lower the overall segment rating too. It is a perfect use of the hot woman’s strengths. No one knows who she is but they react a little to her sex appeal. Her Sex Appeal is the entire reaction to that video. People attracted to women look at her and react. But if all she does is look hot, they don’t react very much. When you’re on the beach, do you pop and cheer and react the same way as you would for The Rock cutting a promo on Steve Austin in the Attitude Era (if you do that might be where we’re at crossed paths). BUT relative to her popularity, it’s a positive outcome. Now some people know who she is and her popularity increases because some people want to see the hot woman again. Hopefully that made sense?

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Suplewich" data-cite="Suplewich" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47568" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>In TEW2016, when I wanted to make a wrestler improve, I would send them to my dev territory. Now that we have performance centre, can I just send them there instead of making a factory company? Will it work the same? Is it faster if I just make both?<p> </p><p> Another question is, I tried to put my user character stats all to 100 for my test save. Including Microphone, Charisma, Acting etc. When I tried to run a short freestyle angle, it failed miserably (it got 27-32 rating) saying that my character basically was not good at doing so. I don't get it, my stats were literally at 100. Can I get some help please? Thanks.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> What’s their popularity? If it’s set to 0 perhaps the rating is formed on a 70-30 split for popularity-skill so they’re getting around full credit for the skill but they’re completely unknown so even knocking it out of the park, the fans don’t care yet?</p>

It is frustrating, more so because the UI makes assessing workers more of a strain due to the layout (the skin mods have helped on the colour/brightness issue) so I was hoping to let my dev. company pick up its own roster. I was also going to try not to hoard workers so much so only signed key prospects. It would be very handy to have a list of required roster members somewhere in the child company info to keep track of how many workers are needed. I’m also assuming you only need announcers if they are broadcasting shows because I cannot find the announcers section for my child company currently.

It turns out it isn't a bug. From reading the section of the handbook Adam directed me to it turns out that your child company can either accept developmental workers or fill out its own roster but not both. You cannot send a handful of workers to them and have them fill out the remainder, you either have to hire all their workers or not send them anyone at all.

<p>Currently in a bidding war for Valiant as USPW. After my first offer, SWF updated their contract offer so I received an email informing me. The options given on the email are View Valiant or View SWF - could a 'Negotiate' button be added there to save the step of having to go into the worker profile to change my offer?</p><p> </p><p> It's just a small QOL change but if we are aiming to reduce clicks, that would be a welcome one.</p>

Do I need to do something to get my child company to hire people? I have sent a few workers down to them but they haven't hired anyone to flesh out the roster and are therefore not running shows because they don't have enough people to run a show. They have both a CEO and a Booker. I know I can just hire some more developmental workers but before I do that, I want to know if I just leave them to it, will they eventually start signing people? It has been a month so far.

I think D-Lyrium's original post is an excellent analysis of certain facets of this particular debate, and I apologise if what I am about to add has already been discussed - I don't have time to read the whole thread but want to add a couple of thoughts before I forget them! I don't mind getting penalties. In fact, sometimes I actively try to get them if I'm building a series so that matches can gradually improve, which is essentially trading off minor penalties earlier on to avoid the bigger repetitive booking penalty but it is also 'good' booking in my mind. A couple of cheap or tainted finishes, a draw, a flash pinfall, whatever it is that i) knocks the rating down a little and ii) gives storyline reasons for there to be another match. Absolutely fine with getting penalties. My issue with penalties is how static and fixed they are. If you go one minute over the stated time expectation, you get slammed with a multi-point penalty. There is no gradual increase in penalty as far as I can tell. It just doesn't fit right for me that there are fixed jumps at arbitrary time limits. Step one for making it a more reasonable and enjoyable process (yes, penalties can add to the enjoyment from a strategic level, for me at least) is to have them applied gradually. Whether that's linear or on a curve, fine. As long as there is a consistent progression rather than blocks that incur fixed amounts across their entire range. Step two would be to factor in other data. Ideally, use the Attributes feature to allow the road agents or workers involved to have particular impact on it. Average Joe Main Eventer might be impacted by the default penalty points but Long Match Specialist Main Eventer might get two or three more minutes before the crowd realise they are annoyed at how long it has been and penalties apply. This then helps distinguish between two guys who are both capable of going longer but only one is good at going longer. Arguably that is already covered by psychology and experience but if that is the case, then use that as the way of providing cushion before a penalty hits. And the reverse can be true as well, so the penalties can hit certain workers earlier to stop it being purely a way of avoiding losing points. Essentially, I want different rules to apply to different individuals because that is how the real world works. Fans have less issue with seeing Shawn Michaels vs Bret Hart go 60 minutes than they would seeing Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar go 60 minutes, and it isn't just that the skills and benefits and positives of the former workers outweigh the negatives of them going 60 minutes - the annoyance at having a longer match itself is lessened. And on the flip side, the fans would not only be annoyed at the match going long, and that the workers involved are gassed/lack the psychology for the match, they are also additionally annoyed at the length because the match is so bad. It's like compound interest. I'd be annoyed that the match was too long, and annoyed that the workers' performances sucked so much, and the two together make me even more annoyed than those two things on their own. I see it as being similar to the repetitive booking penalty. Your match has to be this good to soften/avoid the penalty for going too long. If your match is this bad, you will get an additional penalty for going too long. It just adds more flexibility, variety and strategy to booking. Okay, I can trust these two experienced, talented, popular veterans to go 60 minutes if I use my most trusted general as road agent because the fans won't even notice they've gone well over their expected time. Hmm, maybe I can get away with putting these guys in the ring for a bit longer because I've got a trusted agent that can mitigate the additional time. Oh man, if I put these guys in the ring for that long, these fans will literally fall asleep. It also adds more worth to having a varied roster because it stops every individual being penalised in exactly the same way. I wish I had time to explain with more clarity but hopefully that vaguely gets the point across!

Is it possible to add more role specific Attributes? This came to mind when talking about the penalties for match lengths. I think reducing the normal penalties for being outside the existing time limits slightly and adding in some of these attributes will give overall a similar effect, as well as more variety and strategy to booking. Also if someone retires and becomes a road agent, they might not be up to your usual standard on their stats but they happen to roll a powerful attribute, you would be more inclined to keep them around. Similarly, if a legend with excellent stats retires but pops out an attribute that stops him booking matches beyond 10 minutes, you might let him go. Like the Epic Bards of Old: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has a large bonus when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches can be X minutes longer before penalties apply and all penalties for matches going too long are softened Long Term Planner: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has a bonus when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches can be (X-Y) minutes longer before penalties apply and most penalties for matches going too long are softened Just a Few More Minutes: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has a small bonus when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches can be (X-Y-Z) minutes longer before penalties apply and penalties for matches going slightly longer are softened Time Padder: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has a small additional penalty when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches have to be (X-Y-Z) minutes shorter or penalties apply and penalties for matches going too long are slightly increased Short of Ideas: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has an additional penalty when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches have to be (X-Y) minutes shorter or penalties apply and penalties for matches going too long are increased Are We Done Yet?: When assigned as a road agent, this worker has a large additional penalty when booking matches that go over the company's usual limits. Effect: matches have to be X minutes shorter or penalties apply and penalties for matches going too long are greatly increased A similar set of attributes could be created for the other end, where workers get bonuses/penalties for being good/bad at booking short matches. If you could start cross-connecting attributes so a guy that benefits from being booked in squashes is more likely to develop a friendship with an agent that is good at booking short matches, etc. then you open up a whole new layer of immersion and dynamism in the game world. This could apply to other parts of match booking too (better/worse at being the road agent for Storytelling, Steal the Show, etc.) to give your road agents some real character. If someone is particularly good at longer matches that are Once In A Lifetime but not necessarily one of your top few agents, they might suddenly be worth keeping around or at least as a development trainer until you hit that moment. And then you can extend it to other staff too. Commentators that get bonuses/penalties based on product (someone that is a good Wrestling-As-Sport commentator is going to struggle in a Comedy Entertainment promotion, or you get to see the difference in Jerry Lawler, who might have a bonus for Risque content and thrive in the Attitude Era but have a penalty for PG Sports Entertainment so suffer in the modern era), referees bonuses/penalties for singles/tag/etc., managers that get bonuses for managing bigger workers or workers with certain gimmick types. There's so much depth that could be added to the non-wrestling workers by using the attribute system.

It seems like match prestige might finally have a purpose? In the same way that events get a boost for their reputation (Legendary, etc.), certain match types could get a boost from their prestige. Also, quoting from here: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=545889 The LEAST severe version is fine with a 25 minute match. Great, that will work for 99% of my purposes but what about if I feel like a 30 minute Ironman match with a 3 minute sudden death overrun (33 minutes in total for those keeping track at home) - now I've lost 19 points. Really? Someone that has zero problem with a 25 minute match is suddenly angry enough that a match has gone 8 minutes longer that it tanks their entire feeling toward the match. It's just too severe a penalty, I think that is the problem for me. I don't mind it being penalised but it shouldn't be so destructive so soon. I would also be interested to know if the penalty works on a curve or if you have to hit certain times to move into a new penalty range because it seems like the analysis done by MainOffender is saying that there are ranges where penalties apply rather than a gradual increase. The first penalty is 8 points. 24:59 - nothing, 25:01 - 8 points. At the ref's one count, the match was flawless. At the three count, nah, it lost it's shine, great Main Event but no longer a 5* classic. Is there the possibility that road agents could have attributes that affect this? A minor, average and major positive/negative range for booking long matches and the same for booking short matches. It would give some value and strategy to assigning road agents beside just getting the best respect/experience/psychology combo. Suddenly you find yourself turning to Joe Long Match to book your Main Event because you want to do an Iron Man match so even though his stats are 85/90/80 compared to Frank Normal Match's 95/100/92, you choose Joe because he can book a match that goes over the penalised match lengths by 9 minutes without getting dinged.

I’m glad to hear the full release has been pushed back to work on some of the issues raised. I hope no one is expecting a change as extreme as the concept screens posted elsewhere (very attractive though they are). It seems like a lot of the vitriol has dissipated now, which is good. I’m still not convinced some people are necessarily understanding a lot of the complaints. It isn’t about finding change overwhelming or not liking that it isn’t the same as previous versions or just needing to get used to it. Those suggestions are all quite patronising. Adam has clearly acknowledged there are changes that can be made to improve user experience so others continuing to insist that there aren’t problems and people just need to get used to it is odd. Between the artist tweaking the UI to tone down some of the bright lines and colour choices (a couple of the skin mods are helping but I think the official artist working with Adam will likely improve on that effect), and Adam hopefully reorganising the screens (office buttons to have some logic) and increasing font size/row spacing, there is enough to suggest that the game will look much more appealing on release without a complete rip it up and start again remodelling of the entire game.

<p>There is a lot about this game that I really, really like.</p><p> </p><p> The new gimmick system is excellent. I love it and have already become firm in my resolve to set anyone who isn’t a Star or higher to the top right when getting a new gimmick to try and capture some lightning in a bottle. Already had some fantastic results (I’m looking at you Morgan Malone, ‘The Maloner’).</p><p> </p><p> The match and angle booking screens are showing a lot of potential, broadly slicker and easier to use, with the exception of the list of RA notes not being scrollable with the arrow keys.</p><p> </p><p> New contract system is so much better. Written, non-exclusive pay per show deals for Jack Bruce and Skull DeBones? Yes please. I love the versatility of it.</p><p> </p><p> The UI though, still limiting my enjoyment and stopping me getting fully invested. I’m really hoping because Adam hasn’t addressed it publicly, that means he’s working on some adjustments. The skin mods already out have minimal impact on the areas that I find most off-putting so I’m really hoping for some changes if not for release then at some point down the road because I want to keep using a lot of the new features but I can’t shell out the money for it in the current state.</p><p> </p><p> I think the biggest frustration is the skills panel when viewing the roster. Split them into their categories, with the in-ring stats next to each other (top row and fundamentals). You could even have two columns of skills in that same space so you don’t need to scroll (and scrolling throughout the game is unbelievably tedious to an extent I didn’t think something as simple as scrolling could be). Increasing the font size would also help.</p>

I did a Classics degree so I often try to adapt Greek/Roman literature/history into storylines. One I do frequently is form a stable called The Triumvirate with one veteran (Crassus), one established Main Event guy (Pompey) and one newer Main Event guy with a lot of upside and potential (Caesar) who have an unsteady alliance held together by the veteran and run roughshod over the top of the card, which generally leads to the veteran retiring in some way (either retired by someone they are feuding with or one of the other two turning) and the remaining two imploding and feuding for supremacy. The bigger version has the Caesar character taking on a new stable broadly representing Mark Anthony, Cassius, Brutus and Augustus, which ends up in Caesar getting betrayed then a tag feud between Cassius/Brutus and Anthony/Augustus before finally Augustus (who starts the whole thing as a rookie) turning on Anthony to get his first world title and start his own era. Most complete version I did of that adaptation was an almost four year arc, pretty satisfying. My other favourite was a three year arc inspired by the Odyssey but that involved a year-long kayfabe injury so unlikely to do that one the same way again.

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Stickmaniac" data-cite="Stickmaniac" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="46105" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Probably (hopefully) not possible; as I understand it, the ‘at war’ relationship represents genuine heat between promotions, not invasion angles and the like. Or am I misunderstanding your intention?</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I’m not suggesting that’s how a mod maker would characterise what actually happened in real life (obviously that wasn’t the case), more musing about the possibility of literally owning your competition.</p><p> </p><p> I suppose it’s more like WWF giving financial support to ECW but they weren’t at war as companies (even if some of their fanbases behaved like they were).</p><p> </p><p> I very much doubt it is a possibility because it is completely counter-intuitive to pay someone to attack you but imagine a scenario where Vince McMahon wanted to keep his rival in business as a motivational ploy for his own workers so after he bought out WCW, he allowed them to keep running as their own entity. Obviously if they ever recovered enough to be a threat, the company that owns the other can call a halt to the war but I like, conceptually, the idea of paying to maintain an enemy that keeps your own game sharp. And that’s probably why I’m not a businessman.</p>

<p>Rereading the journal and an idea occurred to me about company relationships.</p><p> </p><p> If A owns B, can they impose a relationship of B is at war with A or does that come under the restricted relationship combinations?</p><p> </p><p> I’m just thinking about running a late 90s/early 00s real life game and WWE buying out WCW but keeping them running as an independent entity that remains at war with WWE.</p><p> </p><p> I’m assuming it is too counter-intuitive to ownership to have your asset ‘officially’ or genuinely at war with you but thought it was an interesting prospect...</p>

<p>So an idea just occurred to me of what I would do if I were booking WWE shows right now. Obviously shows are lacking something without a crowd and nothing feels quite as exciting even with the switch back to live shows.</p><p> </p><p> I stumbled mentally into thinking about the recent releases and that list of under-utilised talent.</p><p> </p><p> Have them ‘invade’ the closed set. Make them an Outsiders/Nexus/Shield type entity. Florida are about to relax their restrictions so having a few extra talent in the vicinity is unlikely to be a problem. The idea of Rusev, Anderson, Gallows, etc. running roughshod over live WWE programming opens up a whole new element to these audience-less shows.</p><p> </p><p> Never gonna happen but it felt like a vaguely interesting idea when I was playing out the booking possibilities for the next couple of months.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about things not being ‘canon’ as long as they don’t completely reshape the C-Verse. It’s not like Adam hasn’t retconned anything himself in the past anyway. Perhaps even ask him if he’d like you to weave the extra women’s wrestling elements into the official canon? A few extra female wrestlers that became managers/valets in bigger companies, maybe a few extra divisions/companies that can provide some title histories even if they don’t hang around into the modern game, if Adam has added new companies/divisions working them backwards to fit ‘97.</p><p> </p><p> Either way, I think adding some low level companies and workers will flesh out the game world in an interesting way. If the player or AI companies don’t take advantage of that, they’ll fade away but having a scene there that has potential to grow into something is a fun challenge to rewrite history. I think a couple of more popular workers who have other careers would also be fun. Maybe HGC brought in a couple of actresses or singers in their early days for crossover appeal? Quite easy to explain their disappearance in canon: they went back to their main career.</p><p> </p><p> For extra staff, wrestling has always been quite nepotistic so maybe there are some siblings/friends/children/cousins that got work as referees/commentators/managers/wrestlers but didn’t last because they just weren’t good at it. We all loved the Mean Street Posse, right?</p>

Just rereading some of the journal and one of the most recent posts mentioned testing different companies in different databases. I know this is likely just some of the more popular TEW16 mods converted for that purpose plus the new TEW20 C-Verse but it’d be fantastic if the game came with multiple canon databases. Something like coming with CV97, CV05, CV13 and CV20 (or 21 for an even spread of years) pre-installed. I know CV97 will likely be the first mod ready to go because Derek is a tester but having the option to jump in with the familiar faces from older databases would be great for giving the new game a whirl.

So do people actually think Matt Hardy is good at cutting promos or do they enjoy the Broken Matt thing ironically? They’re so forced, it’s like he’s an unbearable parody of a character he’s seen in a bad horror film. And they’re so clunky; they remind me of the awkward ramblings from a bad efed character. Yet during his TNA run and now during his early AEW stuff, I see fans on Twitter going crazy as if he’s an all-time great. Just because he’s ditched his actual accent and randomly inverts language (hole of ass, etc.) doesn’t mean he’s suddenly some legendary promo guy. I’m fairly sure I’ll be in the minority on this one because his schtick seems to have resonated hard with fans online at least but I’m at a loss for why people find it entertaining. (And that’s not a judgement on other people, plenty of things I like that I’m sure others find equally confusing)

The Protagonist is just the main character in a story. Obviously this usually means they are also the ‘hero’/babyface but, for example, Arthur/Joker is the protagonist in Joker but there is a lot of debate about whether he is a hero/villain/anti-hero. I assume on that basis the protagonist(s) for cinematic style matches would be Matt Hardy/Undertaker/Bray Wyatt for Final Deletion/Boneyard/Firefly Funhouse respectively but their opponent wouldn’t need to have the same type of gimmick/character so not all participants would be included in that requirement.

What is the progression like for Booking Skill? Can someone start at, say, 40 but eventually grow to 85+ over time, or is it much more static as a value?

I hope that truly awful industry and economic periods have the potential to be devastating to the landscape of companies. If both are absolutely in the toilet, even big companies should be able to completely collapse if they haven’t prepared for the lean periods. A company like WWE should have enough in the bank to take a big hit, maybe drop from Global/International (or the equivalent of) to National (or the equivalent of) but have deep enough pockets to take the hit, readjust, scale back, and go again. Whereas WCW should feel the impact of not planning for such a disaster and be completely ruined when their media deals fall through because they’ve not got a contingency plan. I know that is revisionist history but the premise is what I’m hoping for... industry giants should be able to collapse rapidly and completely, which didn’t seem possible in ‘16. If you got to Global, you were basically free to spend, spend, spend even in low periods.

In historic mods, I always scrap it on the main roster and sign up female talent for a women’s only development territory. Depending on the time period, sometimes that results in a relaunched division, sometimes it doesn’t. Modern day, I book with an integrated roster so I have the pushes but still largely keep the genders separated in singles competition (notable exception is Charlotte Flair winning the United States title). My current game is a 2005 mod that I’ve played through to 2006. My onscreen women’s division has been Trish, Lita, Molly, Victoria and two signings (Amazing Kong and Cheerleader Melissa) for the last six months or so. I have a lot of talent in development though and debuted Beth Phoenix a couple of months ago as an enforcer for my heel cruiserweight champion Nicho El Millonario (who is playing a masked androgynous character Dionysus). She will turn face shortly after the Rumble and face Kharma (Kong) at Wrestlemania to transition to the Women’s Division on Raw. I have also just debuted Melina with Morrison/Miz as their manager, and have a few PPA women’s wrestlers on my third brand due to company buyouts so she usually wrestles dark matches and then has angles with her team. When she’s over enough, she’ll join the Women’s Division too. Chyna is in rehab and whenever she finishes, I’ll make her clean in the editor so she can rejoin the roster. Mickie James, Michelle McCool, Gail Kim, Natalya, Daffney, Sara Del Ray, LuFisto, Katie Lea (Nikita), Talia Madison, Asuka, Becky Lynch and Traci Brooks will probably get called up within the next two years as well so the plan is to have a strong integrated division eventually. Becky Lynch is the only one who feels unrealistically young to join the roster. Generally my cut off is over 25 and almost fully trained in development, which will be the case for the rest. Becky is 18 at the start of 2006 but in real life she retired that September and when she came back 6/7 years later, was almost immediately signed by WWE so I don’t think having her debut on my third brand at 20 would be completely unrealistic in terms of in ring experience. Maybe I’ll release her to work the indies for a couple of years. I should end up with about 10 each on Raw and Smackdown by 2008, plus the more diva types like Ashley Massaro and Maria Kanellis, who I also have under contract.

If they are face, have Dundee get jumped and temporarily put on the shelf (ideally by an established/veteran star). Have Regal step up to defend his honour but lose the first (probably TV) match and in the build up to the pay-off have him visit Dundee and promise to get revenge on his behalf and in their final segment, have Regal suffer a crisis of confidence and Dundee tell him he’s like his own son and he believes in him. As a response, Regal takes the Sir William name as a moniker to give himself that belief going into the match, then just stick with it when Dundee comes back from his ‘injury’ or even have Dundee say how much it meant to have Regal fighting under his name. If they are heel, have them (especially Dundee) torment someone who is likely younger/more in their prime than Dundee and build it to a match with face vs Sir William. Then when the match starts, bait and switch with a heel promo saying “oh you thought we meant this Sir William? No no no, Regal is also Sir William” and then have Regal dismantle the face and move on using the name.

<p>During TakeOver, Graves posted a couple of harsh tweets directed at Mauro Ranallo, who then didn’t call Survivor Series and deleted his Twitter. With his mental health history, lots of people are calling Graves out for being a reprehensible jerk but he’s doubling down and being unpleasant to fans too. He even, without any irony, criticised Frank Shamrock for insulting him on Twitter instead of talking to him face to face ‘like a man’.</p><p> </p><p> WWE’s reason for Mauro’s absence is that he blew his voice out at TakeOver.</p>

Shorty G reminds me so much of the time I made Greg Gauge into G-Squared on TEW and deliberately gave him a terrible gimmick to slow down his progress so he would hang around the mid-low card for a while before I was ready for him to break out. Except they seem to think this is the breakout gimmick and the right time to push him. What was wrong with the name Chad Gable? He could have had the exact same character change without the stupid name change.