Using Statistics and the C-Verse to Build Better Mods

[lazorbeak]

Well this was certainly something to wake up to. I don't want to make an entirely new thread but I also don't want this to turn into some dumb argument. But I do think I should say something about the fact that a prominent mod-maker called me out by name in a thread made to announce that he was leaving the forum. If nothing else, it really lets me know some of the misconceptions he holds and why he has a particular grudge against me.

 

Long story short this has come about because LB was a BETA tester, made some suggestions that weren't taken on board and became the 1 star rater of all my mods and has trolled on every release since.

 

This is completely false. I have never rated any of his mods, nor have I "trolled" anything else this mod-maker has done. I made some suggestions on one mod and it got heated once, and since then this person has made continually sniping attacks, created threads solely to flame me, even tried to turn this thread into a useless flame war, and generally treated me like ****. I tried to avoid dealing with them and stay out of his threads and discussions, while he continually jumped into discussions, contributing nothing but seeing an opportunity to post incendiary junk (the posts he complained were deleted). In that thread, I ignored him, and in the PM thread where he says I called him names, it did in fact escalate to that point only after I pulled it out of a major thread in the dog pound and into PMs because he was continually flamebaiting me. His complaining that my posts weren't deleted from the sean waltman thread is also bizarre, since 1. my three posts that were off-topic and just responding to him- in the form of a Princess Bride quote, a definition of "trolling," and a post that consisted entirely of "Um, what?", were all deleted, along with his posts, which were not as in good fun and mostly involved insulting me. So it's not a double standard, both were deleted, even though the content between them was not equal (I was going out of my way not to escalate things), and 2. his idea that he was only responding to the same behavior is just not true at all; I went out of my way to avoid his flamebaiting before eventually responding with quotes and jokes, rather than serious invective. Also he says he doesn't take things that seriously but that he is leaving the forum because he's so upset posts he made solely to antagonize were deleted on more than one occasion.

 

I think it's a shame to see him go as he put a lot of time and effort into his mods, but he is not a victim.

 

Pretty sure I have never mocked the work he did either privately or publicly the way he did:

 

Now back to the mod workshop I go, without detailed analysis comparitive to C-Verse either, just call me a rebel Fenoli and BHK are prob the only one's who will get that but I'm so tired I don't care

 

Not going to turn this into a big argument, but I felt like I had to say something to clear up some gross, gross misconceptions.

[Adam Ryland]

lazorbeak, you and Genadi have both had one big post against each other today, so I expect that to be the end of this increasingly petty "feud", permanently. I post this here rather than by PM so that everybody is well aware of the state of play.

 

For reference, any further posts (from anyone) that continue the war or words will be deleted and the poster banned. This is, in essence, a clean break from this point onward.

[lazorbeak]

lazorbeak, you and Genadi have both had one big post against each other today, so I expect that to be the end of this increasingly petty "feud", permanently. I post this here rather than by PM so that everybody is well aware of the state of play.

 

For reference, any further posts (from anyone) that continue the war or words will be deleted and the poster banned. This is, in essence, a clean break from this point onward.

 

Thanks Adam. I didn't name names and I'm not trying to make a post "against" someone, nor do I really want to be engaged in a "feud" with anybody. I just wanted to clear up some of the false things being said about me by name.

 

Next post I make in this thread will be about how the selling stat fits in with basics, psychology, and the rest, and why big guys are no good at it.

[Remianen]

So what would a pumped future worker, like the one you created, look like? Who would be a good model amongst the C-Verse future workers to base future seeds on?

 

I think the Gauge brothers specifically and most any 2nd generation "yet to debut" character gives a good sense of what he's talking about. They don't necessarily have to also possess world class charisma or star quality, but they come in with very high performance stats so they can train others, even if they're training their seniors.

 

Ah, here's where I disagree to a point.

 

The Gauges, Gino Montero, Alicia Strong, Lauren Easter, Lucy Stone-McFly, all great examples. However, without that charisma and star quality, they can go a while without being signed and/or wind up working at the bottom of the card. That's not the best way to utilize their talents. As you know, having the charisma and star quality makes it more likely they'll be worked UP the card where their skills will be more useful overall. That's not to say you're wrong (you're not, it's just a different approach), I just prefer to go heavy on the charisma and star quality to stack the deck in favor of the worker making it to midcarder/upper midcarder quickly. I usually don't go heavy on the overness (I don't want workers straight out of school main eventing) so this is the compromise for me.

 

Ideally Rick, you want to set them as graduating from a major promotion's school/dojo so they're injected directly into the main roster (signed immediately upon graduation). You can also have a few wunderkinds produced by independent schools and those would be your wild cards. They'd typically be signed by smaller promotions where they could work before the big promotions snatch them up.

[lazorbeak]

Okay, as mentioned a couple weeks ago, here is a post about selling!

 

The help file describes selling as a wrestler's ability to "sell" moves and matches. While basics represents training and footwork and psychology represents storytelling ability, selling is truly just a measure of how good a worker is at taking a bump. And while guys with perfect basics or elite psychology tend to be amazing workers, a bump machine may or may not be a great worker: unlike the other performance stats we've looked at, nothing in "selling" suggests that only elite workers should have it.

 

Top sellers in North America, C-Verse (90 and above): Air Attack Weasel, Sean McFly, Hardcore Killah, Extraordinario Jr, Snap Dragon, Davis Wayne Newton, Dan Stone Jr, Steve DeColt, Ernie Turner.

 

That's a relatively small group and what should jump out is how only Stone, McFly, DeColt, and to a lesser extent DWN are elite workers in any other category. The other half are not exactly household C-Verse names, and only Air Attack Weasel and Snap Dragon are elite workers in other performance skills.

 

What's also notable is how few "big guys" have any skill at selling at all. Since it's primarily a measure of bumping, this isn't surprising: most big guys are trained not to sell too much, and combined with the increased difficulty that comes with more mass, it's not surprising that a guy like Bruce the Giant has every performance skill over 65 with the exception of selling, which is a 22. Other big non-sellers: Skull DeBones (51), Rocky Golden (50), Runaway Train (39), Marat Khoklov (22). Eddie Peak and Brandon James are great sellers for big guys by comparison, as each have selling in the 60's.

 

The median and mode is a surprisingly low 62: only psychology has a lower median among performance stats. In SWF and TCW, the median selling goes up to 68.5, a smaller jump than the increase in most stats, probably due to the number of prominent big guys within each promotion.

 

It would be an oversimplification to call selling an anti-big man stat: Christian Faith still has good selling (84) despite being a heavyweight, and a few other heavyweights manage to have solid selling despite their size. But it's a stat where a lot of workers and big men in particular are at a disadvantage, while guys whose primary attribute is making others look good excel. Which makes sense, since being too good at selling tends to cause a worker to be a designated jobber for putting over how dangerous other guys are.

 

Also worth noting: the best woman in North America at selling is Roxy Kitten, midcarder for Babes of Sin City, despite a basics skill of 34. Meanwhile a talented but "monster heel" woman like Gorgon has a 52 for selling and an 81 for basics.

[Irish Wolf]

The help file describes selling as a wrestler's ability to "sell" moves and matches. While basics represents training and footwork and psychology represents storytelling ability, selling is truly just a measure of how good a worker is at taking a bump. And while guys with perfect basics or elite psychology tend to be amazing workers, a bump machine may or may not be a great worker: unlike the other performance stats we've looked at, nothing in "selling" suggests that only elite workers should have it.

 

Selling is most certainly not being able to take a bump, bumping we learned day one before we ever took a move or had to sell for it. I know guys who can bump really well, they hit the mat make a loud noise but not sell the fact they just landed on their back and its supposed to hurt. Selling is pretending that the thing the other guy did to you really, really hurt. Swinging Neck Breaker, now my neck hurts, Suplex damn there goes my back, Headbutt now my noggin is in pain.

 

I love the stat work you're doing but I just wanted to clear that up.

[lazorbeak]

Selling is most certainly not being able to take a bump, bumping we learned day one before we ever took a move or had to sell for it. I know guys who can bump really well, they hit the mat make a loud noise but not sell the fact they just landed on their back and its supposed to hurt. Selling is pretending that the thing the other guy did to you really, really hurt. Swinging Neck Breaker, now my neck hurts, Suplex damn there goes my back, Headbutt now my noggin is in pain.

 

I love the stat work you're doing but I just wanted to clear that up.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, it made a lot more sense in my head. Selling does include more than just bumping, but as explained later in the post it's a measure of making someone else's offense look good, which is why the best in the game at are not necessarily big names. But while there's more to it than bumping, I'm not sure that bumping isn't incorporated into the selling stat, based on what my data turned out: namely, that big guys are generally at least 15-20 points worse at selling, and that the gap gets more pronounced the bigger the guy gets.

[crayon]

Just to dig up a dead horse again, regarding Star Quality, does that have any effect on Personality roles?

 

I could be completely offbase with things, but I'm sure in the past I've had people set to be personalities, but they haven't auto pushed to that until I tweaked their star quality (having them set as able to do several different roles, originally)

 

Could be important info to know

[MJStark]

Thanks for clearing that up, it made a lot more sense in my head. Selling does include more than just bumping, but as explained later in the post it's a measure of making someone else's offense look good, which is why the best in the game at are not necessarily big names. But while there's more to it than bumping, I'm not sure that bumping isn't incorporated into the selling stat, based on what my data turned out: namely, that big guys are generally at least 15-20 points worse at selling, and that the gap gets more pronounced the bigger the guy gets.

 

Bumping would, for me, belong in basics. If you can't bump, you can't really work a match. Big guys are not as good at selling for one good reason, they don't have to very often. There are a few big guys who can sell well, some for good reasons eg Eddie Peak: if you're a hardcore worker you really need selling to make it look good & Christian Faith: he's class all round. Bruce the Giant on the other hand will only really take a max of 5/6 bumps a match and usually be booked to look devestating/unbeatable, so doesn't have to be as good at making those bump he did take look as painfull.

 

IMO it's why in real life Big Show is rarely booked as the undefeatable monster he could/should be, because he can sell pain really well. So he works in the uppermid/main event scene, dominating lower & mid carders, jobbing to main eventers and occasionally putting over an up and coming worker to give them a nice boost.

In contrast, Kane is AWFUL at selling, looks constipated when he's meant to look in pain, so he is mostly booked in a dominant way. Although, in his case, he is either beating lowermid guys or beating Uppermid/ME guys, but usually still being shown as dominant.

 

On the flip side I used to work with a guy who could sell the pain from moves well but he was so big he couldn't bump for toffee. That to me is poor basics, but good selling.

 

Sorry, I went on a bit there. I'm loving all the work you're putting in to this, I just feel Apupunchau@optonline has it on the money

[lazorbeak]

I think you may be right re: selling, as dominant monsters like Runaway Train also start off with lower basics than you'd expect from someone with his experience. Maybe part of the problem is so many big guys are basically taught not to sell because it makes them look tougher? I think it was Kevin Nash who, while still with WCW and incredibly green, saw a guy significantly smaller than him no-sell and basically decided to stop even trying to sell. And it led him to multiple world championships in the biggest wrestling companies on the planet.