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How do you deal with prospects being ranked prematurely?


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Posted

I kind of wish the rankings logic in this game was tweaked a little, but of course asking a computer to reach a subjective conclusion can never be perfect. What always ends up happening to me is that I end up rushing my prospects. I'll sign a regen with great stats for a 0-0 19 year old kid to a deal and after four wins over guys I hand selected to be easy wins, suddenly the kid is the #19 middleweight in the world or whatever. I'll give him another easy win and he'll end up being #12 or something like that.

 

What do you guys do when you have a guy who just isn't ready for top guys but is ranked like one? When a lesser veteran goes on a surprise run and gets ranked highly, I'll feed him to a prospect to give the prospect a boost. But I never know how to deal with a young guy who you just know has the ability to be something if given time to when rankings have him borderline top ten. How do you book say the #14 guy in a division against the level of guys that a 5-0 prospect that you're building should be fighting? I usually end up matching him with another fringe top ten guy and watching him take a loss that could end up preventing him from joining a top camp and reaching his full potential. It sucks.

Posted
I kind of wish the rankings logic in this game was tweaked a little, but of course asking a computer to reach a subjective conclusion can never be perfect. What always ends up happening to me is that I end up rushing my prospects. I'll sign a regen with great stats for a 0-0 19 year old kid to a deal and after four wins over guys I hand selected to be easy wins, suddenly the kid is the #19 middleweight in the world or whatever. I'll give him another easy win and he'll end up being #12 or something like that.

 

What do you guys do when you have a guy who just isn't ready for top guys but is ranked like one? When a lesser veteran goes on a surprise run and gets ranked highly, I'll feed him to a prospect to give the prospect a boost. But I never know how to deal with a young guy who you just know has the ability to be something if given time to when rankings have him borderline top ten. How do you book say the #14 guy in a division against the level of guys that a 5-0 prospect that you're building should be fighting? I usually end up matching him with another fringe top ten guy and watching him take a loss that could end up preventing him from joining a top camp and reaching his full potential. It sucks.

 

Take the Junior dos Santos approach, book him against a ton of beatable opponents who massively, massively play to his strengths. Got a great striker? Match him with a ton of dudes with no chin. Got a great sub guy? Match him against wrestlers with no sub defence. After a while he'll have a tidy little record and a bunch of 'highlight reel' wins. One title eliminator later and BOOM, there's your legit contender.

Posted

The game isn't forcing you to match up by the ranking numbers. You don't have to book that way.

 

Remember, if you have a 5-0 prospect in your promotion, he probably isn't worth any significant amount of popularity. Popularity is king in the game. I think it's funner to just keep holding off on fighters you want to develop instead of throwing them to the wolves outright. Just keep testing their abilities until they are ready. They will get over if they keep winning.

 

Also, the reason this game is so great is because of its randomness. Don't ever look at someone's stats and assume that they are not ready. I've had plenty of top guys with yellow stats throughout.

Posted

That depends, if you want what's best for him, keep giving him the tomato can diet. If he's really a key part of your future, you may want to let him keep winning until he gets into a camp that can further his training. Another thing is that popularity does seem to rise faster for undefeated guys, so if you're hurting in that area he can become a banner name in little time.

 

If I have a guy who's ranked higher than he should be though, I usually find the guy in his stratosphere that I want to move up and let him get the rub. If you keep moving a guy who isn't ready up, it's just going to make his fall from grace that much farther when he does face superior competition.

Posted

In my games, I go with the theory "Welcome to the big leagues, now it's time to earn your paycheck,".

 

If the prospect does good against my main people (aka any of the Clayton sisters), then she's a legit contender. On the other hand though, if she stinks the place up to high heaven...well I can always use another good-looking can for my stars to pound on. :D

Posted
I just don't sign the best prospects for their first few years, instead shortlisting them and following their careers. I have most of the best fighters in my promotion so they are facing mostly cans in the others anyway. This way, they can build a solid 10-12 win record and develop a little bit, possibly join a good camp and then I sign them. The downside to this strategy is they occasionally become champ right when you want to sign them, and the champion's clause blocks you.
Posted
I just don't sign the best prospects for their first few years, instead shortlisting them and following their careers. I have most of the best fighters in my promotion so they are facing mostly cans in the others anyway.

 

That is a great point. I do this too.

 

Not only does it make every game fresh because you're not just signing every good fighter that you know, but you also have fresh eyes to every other guys that you have signed. It makes the game a lot more exciting to just hold off on things.

Posted
I just don't sign the best prospects for their first few years, instead shortlisting them and following their careers. I have most of the best fighters in my promotion so they are facing mostly cans in the others anyway. This way, they can build a solid 10-12 win record and develop a little bit, possibly join a good camp and then I sign them. The downside to this strategy is they occasionally become champ right when you want to sign them, and the champion's clause blocks you.

 

I try to let super prospects get a solid 5-10 local fights but sometimes they're snatched up by the AI and booked terribly, leading to something like a 1-3 record.

 

I honestly think that's my single biggest complaint about the game, the AI seems to book its fighters according to talent rather than according to reputation or record. 2-0 super regens get swooped up, put against a gauntlet of really tough opposition then released while cans are left to fight each other.

Posted

With my blue chippers I like to feed them my "merry go round" of journeymen, i.e. fighters who I keep on the roster to get beat by the young prospects. I usually don't put them in a higher level fight until they have about 7/8 wins in my promotion which is usually about 2-3 years. If they get upset then I'll put them in a few more fights to really prove themselves.

 

I agree with not signing every great prospect though, sometimes it's good to watch how they develop in other promotions.

Posted

There's no hard and fast answer. It really depends on the fighter's abilities.

 

Like, if I'm building up say Danny Akabaro, who is a good fighter but a very flawed one, I'm going to take my time. I'm going to try and keep him as far away from grapplers as possible. But at some point he'll have to face them, and then he'll be exposed. In my current GAMMA game, it ended up being Bill Brown who exposed Akabaro. But it would have been someone at some point. Sometimes it's better to let a guy get exposed before you've put too much time in them. So while I pretty much killed Akabaro off, Brown rose higher.

 

On the flipside, if I'm building up Isaiah Monroe, I know that after only a few fights he'll be able to hang with the elite. And I know that by debut he's better then 90% of the weight class. So I really just fed him whoever I had on hand, then once he got ranked and needed popularity I started putting him on TV shows. Now at 9-0, he's fighting for the title.

 

But if you're paying $70,000 for some High National Jiu Jitsu guy, it makes no sense to slow play them. Unless you like not justifying the contract, that guy has to pull his weight immediately. You may only be at a point where a handful of guys earn more then this 0-0 guy. The price demands you fast track that fighter, hell or high water. I had such a guy, and he did well in deep waters but has ran into a snag going 2-2 in his last four. He'll recover, but by god he's earning that pay.

Posted

For me, when a guy starts making 100K to show, then he is thrown to the wolves. Had a HW regen that went 6-0 (Cans in hindsight - at the time I didn't know) under the first contract...by the second contract he was 12-0 (this time 6 matches against +.500 vets). Put him in a match with Satinho for the title and he won the title...Has made three defenses and is @ 16-0.

 

I had this type of thing happen 4 times now (two with women, one HW and a Lamont Banner Regen)

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