Journal discussion thread

[gazwefc83]

[QUOTE=djthefunkchris;413071]I think the concern is more of the storylines requireing that you do just that... The following match must be a 1 vs. 1 match involving "X" on side 1, and "Y" on side 2. I'm pretty sure that you don't have to have the same exact match though, any 1vs.1 match will do (I'm almost positive without going and looking). So you could have a 1vs.1 no rules, hardcore, cage, etc.. and all work for the feud (again, I'm almost positive).[/QUOTE] any type of 1vs1 wether it be a hardcore match or cage match or last man standing count as the same match beacuse there all 1vs1

[AfRoMaN36]

Well becareful what you wish for you guys. You all complained that it was too easy to make an A* show, now you pay the price.

[gazwefc83]

everybody thinks this is great but i have a feeling this will make the game to hard and people will regret asking for it to be added (this should be optional)

[eayragt]

[QUOTE=gazwefc83;413110]everybody thinks this is great but i have a feeling this will make the game to hard and people will regret asking for it to be added (this should be optional)[/QUOTE] Well, it definately makes it harder if you constantly book the same matches, as you will [I]sometimes [/I]be penalised for this. It's only going to constantly affect card ratings if the whole card is made up of repeated matches which get penalised (which often won't happen if you're booking them well). I'm surprised that no-one's brought up the "WWE have repeated X vs Y more than twice in six month arguments", which is true. Often when they do this, the match comment from the Internet smark is "Did we really need to see this match again?". Other times they don't - it's being booked well. And this feature seems to have been programmed so if you're booking well, you're not punished. It has made the game harder. It tries to get you to come up with original marquee match ups. To keep main eventers apart so when they feud their fights are fresh. It's one thing that irratates me when I read some diaries, and that's the Main Eventers randomly thrown together for the Main Event of a TV show for no reason, to keep up the ratings. This feature discourages that. It will be harder. But how much so? Really?

[Irish Wolf]

I stayed out of the original thread with this suggestion in it mainly because it seemed to be getting out of hand and I was hoping this wasn't in. But I play mainly small feds with the minimum roster size but I try and do a weekly show early on even if it's not televised so this is going to kill me with such a small roster. I'm with the group of folks who hope that this feature has toggle switch so I can turn it off.

[foolinc]

Well it looks like if I can't turn this off, then my NEO game just got extremely harder to run.

[mvargus]

I love this new feature, and I usually start with either one of the smaller promotions or as a true indy with no reputation and build from there. Nothing in this "repetitive booking" feature is really that difficult to avoid. There are 3 "traps" Trap 1: match is worst of series. Avoidance: build your matches with hype, advanced booking and storylines after the first one so that the first will always be the weakest. Trap 2: match falls below "average rating" for the series Avoidance: again building the series with hype and storylines so that the fans are still excited to see it, and making sure your wrestlers have high consistency should keep the rating going up, not down. Trap 3: after the 3rd match the "average" starts receiving a multiplier which increases as more identical matches are scheduled. Avoidance: use tag, triangle, 6-man matches. Have the wrestlers taunt each other, but not meet. Stretch out the period between the 1v1 face-offs. the only prebuilt storyline that will run into these traps naturally in a smaller promotion is the "Best-of-7" set-up, but even that can be stretched out and the problem reduced. think of how the WWE uses the Best-of-7 storylines. They usually are for a mid-card belt, not the major titles, and they take 2 wrestlers with good charisma and consistency. Matches 1 and 2 are often nothing special, just a pair of average 1v1 matches with little to no hype. Match 3 usually gets a lot more hype, and starting at match 4 they often now have 2-3 weeks between matches as there are run-ins, taunts, promos, claims of injury, requests to send in an alternate, or other action designed to hype the match and increase anticipation. I've seen a full month go between match 6 and match 7, and match 7 is almost always at a PPV as one of the major matches, with the attendant hype. They build towards that ending so that the fans don't get bored of seeing the same 2 wrestlers face off in 7 straight matches. For a smaller company with 14-16 wrestlers it isn't all that hard to avoid duplicate booking if you are running 1-2 shows a month. Feuds can be extended easily by having additional wrestlers interfering or participating. I remember one time where I was running a single show a month where a singles feud between 2 upper midcarders went 14 months, and they only faced off in singles matches 2 times during that run. The rest was tag matches, face-my-friend matches, back stage fights, promos, etc. I think half my roster was involved in some part of the feud during the run, it was fun to book and despite being between 2 wrestlers with F overness finished with a D+ storyline rating. (and pushed one of the wrestlers to my main event). This addition is going to help make the game more interesting and challenging. I just wish I had friends who could hang out for days on end in multiplayer now.

[djthefunkchris]

[QUOTE=gazwefc83;413089]any type of 1vs1 wether it be a hardcore match or cage match or last man standing count as the same match beacuse there all 1vs1[/QUOTE] Ahh, I misread. [QUOTE=AfRoMaN36;413098]Well becareful what you wish for you guys. You all complained that it was too easy to make an A* show, now you pay the price.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=gazwefc83;413110]everybody thinks this is great but i have a feeling this will make the game to hard and people will regret asking for it to be added (this should be optional)[/QUOTE] Really, it depends on how bad the penalty is, vs the reward. I'm not going to say it's a great feature till I see it in play. However, this does eliminate allot of the "Best of" series storylines, or at least makes you have to change them all. For people only putting on one show a month, this isn't going to be that hard at all for. For those putting on weekly shows and more, this is going to be a bit of work to get around.

[soundsofsilver]

Remember that when booking a "best of 7 series" you can use various road agent notes to make the later matches better than the previous ones, thereby not being penalized.

[Irish Wolf]

[QUOTE=mvargus;413122]Trap 1: match is worst of series. Avoidance: build your matches with hype, advanced booking and storylines after the first one so that the first will always be the weakest. Trap 2: match falls below "average rating" for the series Avoidance: again building the series with hype and storylines so that the fans are still excited to see it, and making sure your wrestlers have high consistency should keep the rating going up, not down.[/QUOTE] First off I run feds like CZCW, 4C and any of the Lucha feds. All with 90% to 100% match ratios. Beyond that even playing small feds that can run angles none of my guys have the popularity to do hype angles for anything. [QUOTE=mvargus;413122]For a smaller company with 14-16 wrestlers it isn't all that hard to avoid duplicate booking if you are running 1-2 shows a month. Feuds can be extended easily by having additional wrestlers interfering or participating. I remember one time where I was running a single show a month where a singles feud between 2 upper midcarders went 14 months, and they only faced off in singles matches 2 times during that run. The rest was tag matches, face-my-friend matches, back stage fights, promos, etc. I think half my roster was involved in some part of the feud during the run, it was fun to book and despite being between 2 wrestlers with F overness finished with a D+ storyline rating. (and pushed one of the wrestlers to my main event).[/QUOTE] I run one show a week plus a blow off show every month. None of it is televised most of my matches are 1 v 1 and 2 v 2. I spread my shows out usually over three regions and my shows are based on realism and in ring product. No screwy finishes, no backstage fights, no promos and now if I run the same 1 v 1 on more than four shows there is the chance I might get penalized. That means in 6 months I can even have my to battling workers meet at all six of my big events without provoking the chance of getting a penalty. Seriously this kills my booking for the top feuds in my small fed. I've gone from being able to pull off a famous year long rivalry between two people even if they only meet once a month. No thank you.

[darthsiddus2]

so basically what I'm getting out of this feature is that you won't be able to do the same match with the same people twice before you get penalized...... basically you can't force Jon Cena vs Randy Orton 3 times with the same match in a row before the crowd hates you for it. I'll tell ya what.... its going to be real hard to put on a good best of 3/5/7 series if you get penalized for it.

[edenborn]

This is, potentially, a wonderful, groundbreaking addition and I'm eager to try it out. On the other hand, I have a few concerns about how it will play (for example, is six months the ideal amount of time?) It'll be very interesting to see how it impacts a booker's strategies. A few thoughts: If I'm a US company and I book a series of untelevised matches between competitors in a tiny arena in Mexico where 20 people see it, and then I book the same match up in a packed Madison Square Garden and televise it, is it realistic that my viewers will feel like it isn't a fresh match up and they've seen it before? Unless they were one of those 20 in Mexico, they'd never have seen it. I recognize that keeping the game challenging may bump up against realism now and then, and perhaps this is one of those times. I suspect a number of gamers would appreciate a warning when booking shows that a given match is a repeat of a recent previous one. If that were in place, it would save the potential annoyance of having to check match histories each time you want to book a feud between competitors to make sure you haven't pitted them against each other, say, five months ago at a small event that you've since forgotten about. Am I right that simply swapping out one of the competitors keeps the match up fresh? So I could theoretically run a ridiculous number of triple threat matches between two feuding opponents and never be penalized as long as the third man in the ring keeps rotating to someone new? It seems like there's now a good reason to keep a terrible referee on your roster. He can put a slight hurt on the ratings of the initial match in any feud, giving more room for improvement for the later matches as the feud develops.

[Richyg]

A simple countermeasure to small feds being hit would be to recude the affect this feature has on smaller feds (in relation to its prestige? or the new "size" indicator?)

[Adam Ryland]

I'm surprised that so many people are complaining that this will mean that tactics that worked in 07 won't work in 08 - just so we're absolutely crystal clear, [B]everyone[/B] will have to change things about the way they play. It's a different game, of course you'll have to come up with new strategies and tactics! Closing off the loophole (which is exactly what it was) where you could coast to success by repeating a good match as many times as you want is not adding a negative, it's removing one. Doing that wasn't so much a tactic as exploiting a flaw - it certainly wasn't good booking skill! The fact that the game is evolving to become a more realistic and challenging experience, and actually rewards talent and punishes sloppy inaccurate booking, is a good thing. Unless you suck at booking, in which case yeah, you're in trouble. :D

[Irish Wolf]

Now that I;m thinking of it what's going to trouble me as a small fed more than the penalty for having two guys meet just at every big event for six months is the matches that build up. Usually my booking will look something like this over 6 months if I'm having a really long fued between top competitors. show 1 x darws y show 2 x over ? show 3 y over ? show 4 x over ? y over ? Big show x over y And then I'll run a tag match here or there. But after six months my two guys will definitely have met more than 3 times and on top of that with a small fed I only have but so much of an undercard for them to go over. So what happens when the ? mark actually becomes the match that's done more than three times in a six month period. And yeah none of these matches are televised so do the people in the North West, South West and Mid South who've only seen these matches a handful of time still complain that my booking is boring?

[Adam Ryland]

[QUOTE=Apupunchau@optonline;413133]I run one show a week plus a blow off show every month. None of it is televised most of my matches are 1 v 1 and 2 v 2. I spread my shows out usually over three regions and my shows are based on realism and in ring product. No screwy finishes, no backstage fights, no promos and now if I run the same 1 v 1 on more than four shows there is the chance I might get penalized. That means in 6 months I can even have my to battling workers meet at all six of my big events without provoking the chance of getting a penalty. Seriously this kills my booking for the top feuds in my small fed. I've gone from being able to pull off a famous year long rivalry between two people even if they only meet once a month. No thank you.[/QUOTE] You seem to have given up rather easily? A slight modification to the way you run events - slowing down your schedule for example - and you're in a much better position. The schedule you've described is too heavy for a small roster anyway, at least within the TEW game mechanics. Small feds aren't designed for that level of intensity. Secondly, as a serious question - are you pissed off that tactics that allowed to be be successful will now need to be rethought, or that the game is now unrealistic? One thing I've noticed so far is that none of the people complaining are doing so because they think this goes against realism, they seem more concerned that what worked in 07 might not work in 08 - which I find to be flawed thinking, as it assumes that what worked in 07 must automatically have been good. [QUOTE=darthsiddus2;413135]so basically what I'm getting out of this feature is that you won't be able to do the same match with the same people twice before you get penalized...... basically you can't force Jon Cena vs Randy Orton 3 times with the same match in a row before the crowd hates you for it. I'll tell ya what.... its going to be real hard to put on a good best of 3/5/7 series if you get penalized for it.[/QUOTE] Where does it say the crowd will hate you for three matches? The journal says you may get penalised, it doesn't say "ohmygod your ratings are going to be slashed!"

[Adam Ryland]

[QUOTE=Apupunchau@optonline;413142]And yeah none of these matches are televised so do the people in the North West, South West and Mid South who've only seen these matches a handful of time still complain that my booking is boring?[/QUOTE] Depends on the size of the promotion. The smaller the promotion, the less exposure they have, the more repetitive they can be.

[Irish Wolf]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;413143]Y Secondly, as a serious question - are you pissed off that tactics that allowed to be be successful will now need to be rethought, or that the game is now unrealistic? One thing I've noticed so far is that none of the people complaining are doing so because they think this goes against realism, they seem more concerned that what worked in 07 might not work in 08 - which I find to be flawed thinking, as it assumes that what worked in 07 must automatically have been good.[/QUOTE] I'm not pissed off because I'll need a chance in tactics. I try and change up my tactics depending on what types of feds I choose to play. Also I'm not one of those players that uses X vs Y on every TV show just because I'll get good ratings even if I'm using X vs Y at a big event (Assuming I'm playing a big fed). And I don't complain on the reason of realism (in either attacking or defending an idea) because the only realism I know is WWE and now TNA. I don't get out to a lot of indy shows or buy DVDs so I don't know wrestling as well as a lot of others on the board. I make arguments based on what I think I'd like to see if I were going to be watching the events which is how I book. Now I know there can be good year+ long feuds as people have brought up Flair vs Steamboat but I've never seen it so that's not my defense although I'm pretty sure I'd like to have seen Falir vs Steamboat in their prime for a year long battle. The end statement brings me back to the first part about why I'm upset (not pissed just mildly annoyed). The repetitive matches was brought up in the other thread because some one felt they could run the same main event, hell the same card every time to rise because they knew it would be good. I'm saying I run different cards all the time and I try and mix it up but occasionally I want to see a long feud Insane Machine vs Plague in a year long battle for the CZCW Xtreme title. The change kind of feels like I'm being penalized because some other guy is unimaginative and I think that may be what's bothering me. I'm probably over reacting but it is bothering me.

[nZane]

From what I gathered, here is how this will work (I'll use number grades instead of letters to simply things). First singles match: 80 Second match: 90 The average of those two is an 85, with the lowest being an 80. So, if your next match is better than 80, you'll avoid Trap 1. If it's better than 85, you'll avoid trap 2. And if it's better than 85 plus a certain percentage based on how many matches the series has had, you'll avoid Trap 3. So, if you get an 86 on your third match, you should be fine. And an 88 on your fourth, you'll be good. And so on and so forth. I really fail to see the problem with this. It adds to both the challenge and the realism in my eyes.

[Adam Ryland]

[QUOTE=Apupunchau@optonline;413147]but occasionally I want to see a long feud Insane Machine vs Plague in a year long battle for the CZCW Xtreme title. The change kind of feels like I'm being penalized because some other guy is unimaginative and I think that may be what's bothering me.[/QUOTE] You still can do a year long feud though, you just need to be realistic about it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there are few (if any) real life feuds that have just been the same match repeated - it's one the fundamentals of booking that you have to mix things up and add variety to keep people's attention. All this feature is doing is taking that latter concept - that variety is a necessary part of booking - and making it part of the game. It is after all a booking sim, so it makes sense that it should follow the basic rules of booking.

[edenborn]

I think the magic of Flair-Steamboat could be simulated with a small addition to the rules. If you put on a highly rated match between two workers who have chemistry with each other, the game could allow for a [B]very slight [/B]chance that this match up has captured the imagination of wrestling fans. Your road agents would send you a note like, "The fans just can't get enough of this X vs. Y match up" which would mean that the penalization rules for those two workers have been disabled for a set period of time. You could then book a best of seven series between them without fear of penalty.

[lazorbeak]

Best feature ever. Look at the way any promotion's booked, you're not going to see the exact same card month in, month out. And if Cena and Edge fought last month and the month before, it only makes sense that fans would compare against the previous matches so that even a decent match could be penalized- remember HHH and HBK's yawner in the cell? People whining about their Indy feds have to realize that match ratings SHOULD be improving- if they're pushing a guy with low consistency or a guy who can't get over, and the match ends up worse than the previous one, there should be a penalty involved, and the lesson should be: "x wrestler sucks." But you should be gaining overness every time you run a show, so between that and the workers improvement, it shouldn't come up every time. You also shouldn't get this unless you're running a full schedule of tiny shows, counting on a ridiculous budget to offset your huge financial losses. If that's the case, my heart bleeds for you (not). It's already been mentioned, but best of 7 matches aren't done by main eventers, but guys with good skills trying to climb the roster. Remember what a debacle the Booker T/Cena best of 7 was? Maybe debacle's too strong a word, but no one wanted to see it because it was the exact same match over and over. Honestly in my booking I'm not sure this would effect me at all as I don't run matches I want to save for pay per views but maybe once on TV to test for any huge chemistry problems. It would certainly prevent me from exploiting the old automatic A* match whenever I want between midcarders with great chemistry, but again, that's probably a good thing.* Look at Jericho and Benoit: they had great chemistry and could churn out main event level matches, but there was a visible effort to keep them away from each other in singles matches between their feuds. In TEW 2007 terms, we would have seen Jericho vs. Benoit from Wrestlemania 2000 on to Wrestlemania 20 in a near constant feud until it ends up being the main event where Benoit beats Jericho to even their series at 51-51 to win the title. It sounds completely ridiculous, but it would be almost a guaranteed A to B+ rated show if every night you watched Benoit and Jericho wrestle an A* match. Plus, the added bonus is the sweet reward of waiting a year (or at least more than six months), having the wrestlers on opposite sides (heel is now a face and vice versa) and remembering that amazing chemistry from before by churning out a guaranteed great match on Pay Per View. * I just realized where else this would hit me- when I get lazy, I would have my champion wrestle a guy I knew he had great chemistry with, but was not exclusive to my promotion. Actually, a quick check shows that I've run this match exactly three times in the past six months, and received one A and two A*'s. In the first half of the year, I ran the same match (different match types) on four out of five pay per views and one episode of my TV show, and received five A*'s. I wouldn't be broken-hearted if I had been punished for this, as long as it's not completely drastic. Great addition, and pretty much the last thing I needed to ensure I was buying this game.

[Wallbanger]

Poor Adam, damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. My initial observation is that it will be easier to adapt for this with a larger roster (allowing for more tag matches/triangles/fourways/handicaps in between 1v1 bouts) than with a smaller roster. I also percieve that this mechanic favors entertainment-based companies, as you have more opportunity to build feud heat with non-match segments. My hope is that there's a corresponding journal entry that rebalances how angles are evaluated (less on overness and more on skills) so that skilled lowercard workers can still cut decent promos and get acceptible grades from them.

[gazwefc83]

it just seems people rnt gonna make much effort in there first few match in order to increase the rating when personly i try and book A grade match every show, surely the fans would rather 6 great matchs between 2 people than 6 medium matchs contain different wrestlers! Quality over quantity!!!!

[Frank_Vest]

I agree that this change is geared towards favoring entertainment brands. It was way too easy to set your match ratio to 100% in a pure wrestling fed and focus exclusively on matches. While I enjoyed only booking matches in my long running TCW game, I had an underlying feeling that I was cheating, that even in a pure wrestling fed, at the very least there are bound to be a few pre/post match interviews.