Question on Repetitive Booking Penalties

[shipshirt]

I was just curious if it's three matches within 6 months from the first time they face? For example: Say you face off Tommy Cornell and RDJ in April and again June and then you want to have a third match in July. Now if you have a fourth match in, say, December, is that under the "three matches in 6 months" ruling? It's more than 6 months from their first meeting so does the "slate" get wiped clean or does the AI just look at any period of 6 months and see the the same match occurred more than twice? Does that make any sense at all??? :) I hope so!

[Michael Wayne]

[QUOTE=shipshirt;439316]I was just curious if it's three matches within 6 months from the first time they face? For example: Say you face off Tommy Cornell and RDJ in April and again June and then you want to have a third match in July. Now if you have a fourth match in, say, December, is that under the "three matches in 6 months" ruling? It's more than 6 months from their first meeting so does the "slate" get wiped clean or does the AI just look at any period of 6 months and see the the same match occurred more than twice? Does that make any sense at all??? :) I hope so![/QUOTE] 6 month period. If they face more than once in that time, you are susceptible to falling into the trap. Just don't do it and you won't have to worry about it. ;)

[shipshirt]

[QUOTE=Michael Wayne;439334]6 month period. If they face more than once in that time, you are susceptible to falling into the trap. Just don't do it and you won't have to worry about it. ;)[/QUOTE] More than once? I thought it was more than twice.

[EricAdams]

But you have to have people in a major feud wrestle at least a few times within six months. I'm not saying pull a Batista and have a permanent #1 contender, but a match or two before the blowoff is standard.

[mvargus]

I did a big write up on this when it was first introduced. 3 shows shouldn't hit the penalties. as long as the last one is the best you will be ok. For your example you have April June July (3 in months 2-7, needs to be good) December (only 2 in months 7-12, no penalities will be assessed) So the July one would have be a great one, but the December one is fine, since both the April and June one are more than 6 months in the past.

[shipshirt]

[QUOTE=mvargus;439402]I did a big write up on this when it was first introduced. 3 shows shouldn't hit the penalties. as long as the last one is the best you will be ok. For your example you have April June July (3 in months 2-7, needs to be good) December (only 2 in months 7-12, no penalities will be assessed) So the July one would have be a great one, but the December one is fine, since both the April and June one are more than 6 months in the past.[/QUOTE] OK that's what I was wondering...so it isn't cumulative. That answers my question.

[shipshirt]

Does the AI suffer the same penalties or are they free to book a match as much as they want? If they are subject to them, from the looks of some of the match histories, the penalties may not be as severe as I thought they might be.

[Harmor]

Well the penalty is quite severe actually ... I am playing as TNA (converted T-Zone 07) and took the tag team titles away from Team 3D cause they are both main eventers. So BG/Kip James (altered their god-awful VKM tag name, silly TNA) are fighting over the belts vs the reformed America's Most Wanted. I have them in a storyline of course so their last match in this 3 match series was supposed to be at Hard Justice. The game told me of the booking penalty but I ignored it, wanting to end this storyline properly ... but I wisely booked it to open the PPV, leaving me much time to compensate for the suckfest it was going to be ... and a suckfest it was, scoring an E+ rating. Seeing how they delivered B and B- before, that's quite harsh a penalty. I am not 100% sure but I think I read the AI either does not get penalized for repetitive booking OR it is cause the AI can at any time book the perfect match so the penalty isn't triggered. Don't quote me on this though.

[Jaded]

[QUOTE=shipshirt;439654]Does the AI suffer the same penalties or are they free to book a match as much as they want? If they are subject to them, from the looks of some of the match histories, the penalties may not be as severe as I thought they might be.[/QUOTE] Adam's confirmed they don't. Harmor, that looks like an insane drop - were there momentum issues or something? When I've hit two of the penalties in the past it's only lowered my match rating by a letter grade at most from previous ratings on the same match.

[Harmor]

[QUOTE=Jaded;439665]Adam's confirmed they don't. Harmor, that looks like an insane drop - were there momentum issues or something? When I've hit two of the penalties in the past it's only lowered my match rating by a letter grade at most from previous ratings on the same match.[/QUOTE] Yes it is, and I suppose it was a mix of momentum and lackluster performance together with the penalty that dropped it so low. It would seem to me that you really got to be cautious with what storylines you put people in this year. It makes sense though.

[johjo]

I have just started playing around with the game and converted the D.O.T.T database from '07 and tweaked it a little (mostly regarding Regions and TV Networks). However I am a little unsure about this feature, does it only affect when running matches repeatedly that are visible in the same region, or every time you match 2 wrestlers up? Otherwise I guess I have to change the regular strategy of pimping out Flair-Steamboat in all out of territory events that are not televised (which actually has some basis in reality :D )

[The Shape]

Seriously? Only 3 meetings in 6 months? That's absolutely ridiculous. :confused: There has been COUNTLESS times in real life where meetings occur more frequently than that with success. I mean as an example of a simple feud, on my first SWF show Valiant went over DuBois in an upset having interrupted his promo, leading to a feud. They face off at the first PPV and DuBois retains via underhanded tactics and at the second PPV the Shooting Star title's on the line again in a ladder match but a penalty will be incurred, despite the fact that each match has varied in terms of the build-up and what's happened and after two months the feud's hardly stale, both are getting over very quickly. I can understand having some sort of penalty but that's just obscenely severe lol.

[benjacko]

Think about it though, for example in WWE they'd use alot of tag and multiple person matches to space a feud out so when they do meet one on one in the feud, it'll be spaced out enough, can apply the same logic when booking on the game :). Works well for me so far.

[James Casey]

Agreed. And the penalty only requires each match to beat the average, I believe - or is there an additional penalty to be paid above and beyond beating the average?

[sheepy]

Simple solution is to tell them to hold back in an earlier match or do something to deliberately affect the ratings (ie make the match a screwy draw). Then gradually introduce better RA notes like make the match more open, have them go all out etc. Its my understanding that if the match performance is better than the previous matches then the penalty doesn't apply. I might be wrong here but that was my take on the matter from the journel entries.

[Gigas]

I had JoRo and Alicia Strong in their 3rd fight in 4 months hit an A. The 4th fight bombed at a D+. First 2 fights were a b- and B. The thing is, if you are getting A's and B's right off the bat with 2 people, the feud will be done after the 3rd match because you'll almost always get a penalty. Its hard to top an A.

[D-Lyrium]

There are three penalties. You get a penalty if it's the worst match in the series. If it's not the worst match in the series, but is below the average, you get a penalty. If you avoid that trap too, then some weird pagan magic happens involving targets. Bascically, it takes the average, and creates a 'target' by increasing the average by a certain percentage depending on how many matches have already happened (so the third match would increase the target by a low percentage, the seventh or eighth would make the target much higher). If you fail to hit the target, you get penalised. It's completely logical. You watch Cena vs. Umaga, and it's decent. Then you're made to watch it again a few weeks later, the other guy wins. Then you watch the rubber match. Fair enough. But wait, Cena vs. Umaga again?! This better be good... AGAIN?! You're going to want it to be a MOTYC by this point or you're going to be very dissapointed that you've had to see the same match five times, probably three of them on pay per view.

[CJ_S]

I never really thought about this when this was first announced, and it's probably already been mentioned but.. Doesn't the booking penalty system virtually eliminate the possibility of running a best of seven series, or at least make running one extremely difficult? It doesn't really bother me too much since I've never done best of seven before, and I can't see a time when I'm likely to, but just something that occured to me :rolleyes:

[sheepy]

The answer is probably. Only thing is that if you're running it in a storyline then the storyline rating and the momentum fo the two wrestlers will hopefully be at such a point that they are carried to a better match and so overcome the penalties. Probably best to stick to best of 5 series though.

[Harmor]

[QUOTE=D-Lyrium;439998] ... You're going to want it to be a MOTYC by this point or you're going to be very dissapointed that you've had to see the same match five times, probably three of them on pay per view.[/QUOTE] Yeah .. I wouldn't mind if the penalty was even a little harsher for PPVs tbh, seeing how people who have to sit through the same match on back to back PPVs will be a little grumpy about it when it doesn't deliver cause they shelled out quite some money for it.

[Irish Wolf]

You can you do a best of seven, you just gotta do it right. You want to start with a slow build on the matches. Have them hold back a bit. As you get to the matches after the third you may want to start throwing in gimmick matches. Start with the ones that are just a little bit more prestigious then a regular match and move your way up. As long as you don't hit the traps (ie keep getting better and better ratings or at least not below the current average of the matches) you won't get penalties. So it is possible you just have to book smart.

[Rams]

I've made it clear in the past that I'm not a fan of the current incarnation, so far that hasn't changed. What really annoys me about the feature is that a three match series is a booking staple. Sure you would like the last match to be the best of the series but if it's not (only by a reasonable margin) I don't think that would have a noticeable impact on the fans impression of it. Beyond three matches I can understand the fans getting tired of seeing the two fight, unless they are great matches.

[Rams]

[QUOTE=sheepy;439995]Simple solution is to tell them to hold back in an earlier match or do something to deliberately affect the ratings (ie make the match a screwy draw). Then gradually introduce better RA notes like make the match more open, have them go all out etc. Its my understanding that if the match performance is better than the previous matches then the penalty doesn't apply. I might be wrong here but that was my take on the matter from the journel entries.[/QUOTE] Doesn't it seem a little ridiculous that you would try to sandbag your first two matches just to avoid this penalty? Sadly though this might be one of the few ways you can safely avoid it. Even if you book the matches correctly there are still things out side of your control, like a worker being off his/her game, that can invoke a penalty. I don't think it's really fair to punish the user for something they may not have control over.

[D-Lyrium]

Name ONE Best of Seven series that didn't get boring by at best match four. Ok, so Booker/Benoit I wasn't too bad, but Booker Benoit II was absolutely awful. So awful Booker couldn't even finish it ¬_¬ They can be done well, in theory, but they never have been. Or at least, let me add a disclaimer, I've never seen one that's felt like 'a competition between two closely-matched wrestlers', rather than 'the same damn thing over and over'. But to be fair, 66% of all BOSS storylines I've watched have included Booker T, so they don't have a lot of chance in the first place :p

[Harmor]

Furthermore, once you found two workers that click and have great chemistry, in the old TEW games it became some sort of I-Win-Template for shows. So this feature doesn't only add realism to the game (I agree with D-Lyrium) but makes it more of a challenge which is very welcome.