Derek B's Mod-Making Guide

[Bonafide_Bluffa]

Things that have been bugging me a lot about mods so I want to leave them here after reading Derek's logic which has tweaked my thinking a little. And note: This isn't saying anyone's rating is wrong, but how the game actually views that rating. You can think someone like Cena sucks at everything, but if the game worked that way, he would have been fired a long time ago.

 

1. The biggest thing about the rating scale in the game is that people see 0-100 and immediately think "Oh 50 is average.". That is only partially true. For the top row skills, yes. For a few other skills, yes. For the most important skills, absolutely not!

 

2. The game is a Pass/Fail system, and it is centered on the number 66.0. So, when you're doing most Performance Row and Looks row (actually 60 for SQ), you're really asking "Does this wrestler suck at this stat?" If he/she does, then by all means put it below 66. So, if you think no one outside of maybe 10 guys in America can put a wrestling match together, then have every suck on psychology (though look below because you run into a problem). If a guy can't sell well, put his selling below 66, but understand what you're saying when you do that. He's not a slightly above average seller, he's a crap seller. If you put Consistency low, you're saying that they put on lousy matches just as often as they put on good matches regardless of their opponent.

 

3. Back to Psychology and one thing that Derek omitted from his discussion of that stat. When you assign someone a psychology stat, you are immediately capping what the match rating will be if they are the one with the higher/highest psych in the match. That's the best way to keep someone's pop low too as it will cap their pop bumps from winning matches because they'll stop increasing in pop because their matches aren't good enough to raise it. Anyone who has played this game for long will remember when their big match got massacred by that "There was a lack of psychology in the match (so here is your 12-15 point penalty)". So, if you assign someone a psych rating of 50, they're now capped at around 70 rated matches when carrying the match. So, if you look at a guy and say, "This guy can never carry a 4 or 5 star match", congratulations because he now can't in the game.

 

4. Also, keep in mind that Calling in the Ring varies depending on your promotion's level with an ever higher psych level needed to keep doing that. As using that Road Agent note improves the match rating, you need to take that into mind as well.

 

5. Appearing in WWE DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE INSTANTLY AMAZING!!! Dear God, I'm so tired with RW mods (and it has been this way for a decade so I'm not attacking the brave people making them now) all making the mistake that if you're in the WWE, were in the WWE, or everyone will instantly want to hire you in their WWE game, you are awesome. If you don't fit into that little box, then you're mediocre or worse. The same with pop too. I actually got told that someone had to be at a ridiculous pop because "If he entered the WWE again right now, he would instantly be an Upper Midcarder." Honestly, the WWE really doesn't work well at all with TEW right now. From the WWE Network to the really, really small roster yet 5 hours of A-level shows leading to repetitive booking every month, and matches not meaning anything, basically card position is irrelevant. I mean Kevin Owens def Cena in his first match could never happen in TEW without mammoth repercussions, so seriously rethink how you do WWE and their wrestlers.

 

6. Mod your universe to work WITH the game, not how you view people irl as TEW doesn't simulate real life well at all (It's a wrestling simulator NOT a real life simulator). Way too many mods focus on the "Big" companies and maybe a "Hip" fed or two meaning that most of the world is useless (mainly because everyone else sucks). This differs dramatically from the Cornellverse and even the Thunderverse where you can pick up any company and have a fun game. A company should be feasible to be successful unless you're doing an historical mod where they should fail.

 

The biggest takeaway should be understanding what it means to give someone a low psych or selling rating. It matters more than any other stat you're giving someone (excluding SQ). A 70 psych for a wrestler in a National company is quite mediocre actually for anyone above midcard. Hell, an 80 psych is mediocre at National for a main eventer. Well, unless you're happy with nothing but low-to-mid 80's main events and constant "Lack of psychology" notes. So, if you have the idea of taking ROH from Regional to National, you won't be using 95% of the current roster according to all the current mods. Hell, I don't know if you can unless WWE fires a bunch of their good wrestlers because their psych ratings preclude them from putting on the great matches necessary. Well, yeah you can if you just ride 4 or 5 people, but that's not fun or realistic as they actually wildly vary their matches unlike WWE.

 

Great write up. Mind if I ask what you think the best RW mods are? (Historical or otherwise)

[smartman]

Great write up. Mind if I ask what you think the best RW mods are? (Historical or otherwise)

 

Honestly, all of the mods from 2004 back I enjoy (looking forward to Mammoth's 2006) a lot. They have it where people don't actually suck outside of WWE/WCW and a lot of people can main event one of those two feds with you putting in the time. The only reasonable current RW mods I'd recommend is Mr. Canada's now old mods as I stated in my list the rest suffer greatly from those issues. Now, if you want to rule WWE with no challenge, then by all means have fun. Want to play Lucha Underground or ROH? Not so much.

[Infernalmiko]

I'm not sure I can fully go along with this for top row stats.. Taking the spreadsheet from 2010 that lists every single active wrestler in the C-Verse, the top 10% in brawling average out to 69% Aerial is 70%. Mat and Chain are 71%. So I find it hard to consider 66% to be average.

 

I'm curious, where did you get 66% from?

 

For other stats the top ten percent avetage is interesting. For basics it's 90%. Star Quality is 89%. But microphone is 74%. 80% for psychology, with the top 25% averaging 72%.

[smartman]

I'm not sure I can fully go along with this for top row stats.. Taking the spreadsheet from 2010 that lists every single active wrestler in the C-Verse, the top 10% in brawling average out to 69% Aerial is 70%. Mat and Chain are 71%. So I find it hard to consider 66% to be average.

 

I'm curious, where did you get 66% from?

 

For other stats the top ten percent avetage is interesting. For basics it's 90%. Star Quality is 89%. But microphone is 74%. 80% for psychology, with the top 25% averaging 72%.

 

Sorry, I thought I made that clear. I opened talking about all the stats before turning towards specific skills, Psychology and Selling being Pass/Fail. And that's where the 66 comes from. You have to have 66.0 selling, or you get that no-sell note (provided both can't). Also, to call in the ring (at Cult or higher), you have to have 66 psych. Both are vital to know when modding or playing the game.

 

Top row skills really aren't that important unless all of them are terrible if they have good psych (see Derek's breakdown on how match ratings are generated).

[kn23m]

Now, if you want to rule WWE with no challenge, then by all means have fun.

Did I missed something and someone is challenging WWE in real life that it should be simulated in the game too?!?

[Teh_Showtime]

Did I missed something and someone is challenging WWE in real life that it should be simulated in the game too?!?

 

SOME COMPANY no, but in real life their tv ratings are near historic lows every week, 3/4ths of the roster have terrible momentum and even worse recent fortunes, many people have terrible/stale gimmicks and awful storylines. Most of that stuff is unnoticed in mods generally speaking. On paper WWE is awesome and has their best roster of all time or at worst since right after the death of WCW, but stats of the wrestlers is only part of the challenge in terms of realism.

[Bigpapa42]

I figured this is a better place to ask than the Small Questions thread, as its a modding question. I've been messing around with some January 2013 data, doing quite a bit of editing. I've been using the 2015 Fleisch and Forlan mods for stats, in large part.

 

The issue I'm running into is that the WWE keeps dropping to Cult when run by the AI. They are at National to start but with decent popularity elsewhere. I based the popularity on those 2 2015 mods as well as the SWF in the CV. Its B (82) in the US and just below that (80) in Canada. Britain and japan are both C- (55) and Mexico is just below that (50). Europe and Australia are lower yet (40). I've toyed with the popularity a bit but short of really neutering the popularity outside the US, I'm not sure the best way to resolve this. I've run probably a half dozen sims of at least six months over the past few days and its a consistent result.

 

One of the issues causing the drop was the SmackDown brand lacking enough over workers, which resulted in poor grades for SD. Although editing out the brand split would remove that completely, I temporarily compensated by making SD a B show. It still happens and it seems that the main reason is the company holding shows outside the US.

 

Just ran a quick six month sim. Somewhere over half of the Raws (the only A show now) and PPVs are held outside of the US. Just looking through them those cards, it seems that shows held in the US are typically getting B or better, so strong enough to maintain the US popularity. Some of the shows being held in England and Japan are hitting B- or even C+, which slowly erodes the core popularity. Using fringe "main event" guys in the ME doesn't help either but they can get away with that in the US and sometimes even in Canada.

 

This isn't the hugest problem. The intent with getting the mod to my liking it is to play as the WWE and I can certainly avoid those pitfalls. But its an issue I would love to sort out. The only solution I have come up with would be further dropping the Mexico, England, and Japan popularity so that the AI isn't so keen to run shows there. Is there anyway else to tackle this?

[Bonafide_Bluffa]

I figured this is a better place to ask than the Small Questions thread, as its a modding question. I've been messing around with some January 2013 data, doing quite a bit of editing. I've been using the 2015 Fleisch and Forlan mods for stats, in large part.

 

The issue I'm running into is that the WWE keeps dropping to Cult when run by the AI. They are at National to start but with decent popularity elsewhere. I based the popularity on those 2 2015 mods as well as the SWF in the CV. Its B (82) in the US and just below that (80) in Canada. Britain and japan are both C- (55) and Mexico is just below that (50). Europe and Australia are lower yet (40). I've toyed with the popularity a bit but short of really neutering the popularity outside the US, I'm not sure the best way to resolve this. I've run probably a half dozen sims of at least six months over the past few days and its a consistent result.

 

One of the issues causing the drop was the SmackDown brand lacking enough over workers, which resulted in poor grades for SD. Although editing out the brand split would remove that completely, I temporarily compensated by making SD a B show. It still happens and it seems that the main reason is the company holding shows outside the US.

 

Just ran a quick six month sim. Somewhere over half of the Raws (the only A show now) and PPVs are held outside of the US. Just looking through them those cards, it seems that shows held in the US are typically getting B or better, so strong enough to maintain the US popularity. Some of the shows being held in England and Japan are hitting B- or even C+, which slowly erodes the core popularity. Using fringe "main event" guys in the ME doesn't help either but they can get away with that in the US and sometimes even in Canada.

 

This isn't the hugest problem. The intent with getting the mod to my liking it is to play as the WWE and I can certainly avoid those pitfalls. But its an issue I would love to sort out. The only solution I have come up with would be further dropping the Mexico, England, and Japan popularity so that the AI isn't so keen to run shows there. Is there anyway else to tackle this?

 

not sure how to help you, but if you ever finish the mod i'd love to see a public release

[Bigpapa42]

not sure how to help you, but if you ever finish the mod i'd love to see a public release

 

I'm sure you aren't the only one, but I don't know how likely that is. Getting permission from everyone who's work I'm using would be one thing. Likely doable. The bigger concern would be the lack of balance and polish. I will likely give up on the modding once I get it to the point of being "playable", but really only for the WWE. It would be "rough beta" stage and that's about it. I suppose that would be enough for some folks but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.

[Infernalmiko]

I'm sure you aren't the only one, but I don't know how likely that is. Getting permission from everyone who's work I'm using would be one thing. Likely doable. The bigger concern would be the lack of balance and polish. I will likely give up on the modding once I get it to the point of being "playable", but really only for the WWE. It would be "rough beta" stage and that's about it. I suppose that would be enough for some folks but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.

 

Old Russian saying "Perfect is the enemy of good enough." Not that I follow it, but it's good advice.

 

WWE wise is it really that popular overseas at this point? It gets coverage in Japan but American wrestling has been covered in Japan going back to the 60's. If they run a show there they'll draw based on novelty but they can't challenge NJPW and probably not the tier 2 promotions unless they pour money into it.

 

As far as I know Smackdown is a B show.

[kn23m]

You should only assign popularity to regions where promotion is holding majority of their shows (in WWE case only in USA (except Puerto Rico and Hawaii), in TNA case only in South East and maybe Tri State) while other regions should't have any popularity at all assigned in the editor (in-game it will still get some based on spillover)! That's on of the core problems with most/all real world mods!!

[Bigpapa42]

Old Russian saying "Perfect is the enemy of good enough." Not that I follow it, but it's good advice.

 

WWE wise is it really that popular overseas at this point? It gets coverage in Japan but American wrestling has been covered in Japan going back to the 60's. If they run a show there they'll draw based on novelty but they can't challenge NJPW and probably not the tier 2 promotions unless they pour money into it.

 

As far as I know Smackdown is a B show.

 

That's true. I'm not a perfectionist but I want a certain balance. The data isn't "rough" in too many and the starting data was entirely playable. I'm pretty sure it was TEW13 conversion of a mod made for TEW05, which was simply overpowered compared to what I prefer. Some may prefer it the way it was. Its also a big mod - something like 70 companies, 3000 workers and 4000 worker relationships.

 

I've adjusted most of the companies and removed a few. I am down to about 2750 workers and under 1k relationships. I've adjusted the attributes and popularity of the top talents, bringing them in line with the two 2015 mods. Still a long ways to go. There are a lot of mid-level workers who are too skilled and too popular. And its going to get really tough since this mod has a fair amount in the UK and Europe that most other mods don't, so I don't really have a solid RW reference to adjust the skills of those workers. So its going to result in a fairly unbalanced world, where some workers have attributes based on one scale and a lot based on a different scale.

 

Smackdown seems like a plain B show now, but at the start of 2013, it was still in transition. They still nominally had a brand split, as there were still two "world" titles. They had their own rosters, although there was frequent crossover. So SD was more of a B+ show than either an A or a B, but the game doesn't model that.

 

You should only assign popularity to regions where promotion is holding majority of their shows (in WWE case only in USA (except Puerto Rico and Hawaii), in TNA case only in South East and maybe Tri State) while other regions should't have any popularity at all assigned in the editor (in-game it will still get some based on spillover)! That's on of the core problems with most/all real world mods!!

 

But that's not entirely accurate, either. The WWE does have popularity in areas outside of the US. Not massive but also not non-existant. It can hold shows in Europe, the UK, etc, and get pretty good attendance. So giving them F or E popularity there isn't really accurate. But like Infernalmiko points out, at least part of those attendances would be based on the relative rarity of WWE shows there. I was going at least partly by Derek's explanation in the first few posts of this thread about WWE popularity.

 

Looking to the default CornellVerse data is pretty helpful with a lot of RW mod stuff, but not so much in this one aspect. The SWF is a company that has never actively looked to expand much outside of the US, which is pretty opposite to the WWE's business model.

[kn23m]

But that's not entirely accurate, either. The WWE does have popularity in areas outside of the US. Not massive but also not non-existant. It can hold shows in Europe, the UK, etc, and get pretty good attendance. So giving them F or E popularity there isn't really accurate. But like Infernalmiko points out, at least part of those attendances would be based on the relative rarity of WWE shows there. I was going at least partly by Derek's explanation in the first few posts of this thread about WWE popularity.

 

Looking to the default CornellVerse data is pretty helpful with a lot of RW mod stuff, but not so much in this one aspect. The SWF is a company that has never actively looked to expand much outside of the US, which is pretty opposite to the WWE's business model.

Like I wrote WWE would still get popularity outside USA because of spillover (something like E- or E across the world) and as far as I know, then they don't hold shows outside USA except one Raw per year in England and one Raw and/or PPV in Canada (other are house shows (European/Mexico tours)) or am I wrong!?!

[Bigpapa42]

Like I wrote WWE would still get popularity outside USA because of spillover (something like E- or E across the world) and as far as I know, then they don't hold shows outside USA except one Raw per year in England and one Raw and/or PPV in Canada (other are house shows (European/Mexico tours)) or am I wrong!?!

 

The WWE recently held their first live broadcast event from Japan. From what I've seen, attendance was about 8500. Which is comparable to what New Japan draws for some of its non-major events (New Beginning, Dominion, Invasion Attack, etc). Similarly, they just pulled 11.5k for a live event in Mexico City, which I think is better than what CMLL and AAA do for most shows outside of maybe their biggest events. Its hard to gauge too much from a one off event or even a couple of shows, but its evidence that there is some actual WWE popularity in those regions.

 

Most of the events held in the UK and Europe are house shows, with typically one or two TV broadcasts or tapings. The attendances are typically fairly strong. Some quick stats I found - they ran a total of 70 shows in the UK on the November tours from 2012-2014 and the attendance averages ranged from 5300 to 6100 per show. That's pretty solid. They can hit 10k for a TV broadcast over there.

 

Putting them at the spillover level of E doesn't make that possible. Again, the novelty factor of only being over there once a year is a factor, most definitely. But putting them at a level where they can draw a decent crowd for a show, where they can get on PPV or TV (which they are), that seems more legit.

[Derek B]

The WWE has been broadcast on Canadian TV for a long time, their popularity there should be comparable to their American popularity easily, and their workers generally equally popular in Canada as in America as a result.

 

One of the potential issues is the way the game world is set up. Obviously it varies form mod to mod, but regional importance levels vary and if the US is set up to be fairly low (it sounds like it might be in this mod) then a major company can fall quite easily if they don't have too many workers capable of headlining. The WWE at that point in time shouldn't have too many big stars, so I'd expect them to be hitting 75-80 rated shows with the talent they had, assuming skills are set up roughly as I'd have them.

 

So the fix would be to increase the values of regional importance across the US. I'd say at least 9 regions should be set to a minimum of 85, though I'd honestly push them to 88-90 for most American regions, exception Puerto Rico and Hawaii, which would both be smaller. Should fix those issues right up, and with other parts of the world having lesser importance, that should still keep the WWE at National, even with the company's populartity set to about 78, which would be fair for them.

[Bigpapa42]

Sweet, thanks Derek. I had edited the regional importance's to match the C-verse. I can adjust them and drop the US popularity a bit. Hopefully that will make a difference.

 

Any other regions you think could be tweaked a bit in the game world, off hand?

 

I've been mulling another option as well. Fleisch was kind enough to share the earliest RWC data he had, which starts in August of 2013 and is (in his words) "rough". But its not really rough, moreso incomplete. The companies that are in the data are fairly complete, but it just doesn't have all the companies and workers of later RWC versions. I toyed around with it a bit and start to import a few more companies. It started to get messy when I set the starting date back to January of 2013, as that required a lot of errors being correct. Workers who had a contract before their debut date, etc. Nothing that would be too onerous to resolve. But somehow, editing individual workers but not having to worry about importing much, assigning contracts, adjusting title histories, etc, seemed more mindless "fun". Now looking at what it would take to balance out the game world in a way I would be comfortable with, I'm starting to rethink that. I don't think I will have much time over the next couple of days, but I will have to take a look at Fleisch's data again and that might be a better way to go.

[smartman]

Yeah, you have to understand what the AI can realistically pull off with WWE. That's about 80-85. So, you have to make sure your importance is set at a min. of 85. Too many mods have it go down to 80, and that is what causes them to drop. Much more pop feds just struggle with 100% AI control since the game is horrible at gaining pop for workers. Not to mention that with the change to TV giving no worker pop, that handicaps it further.

 

Of course, WWE really should be Cult right now because no one on their roster has enough pop to headline a National fed nor are they that big of a deal anymore.

[K-Nection]

Of course, WWE really should be Cult right now because no one on their roster has enough pop to headline a National fed nor are they that big of a deal anymore.

 

I think Cult is pretty harsh...ECW in its absolute Prime was Cult and WWE is leaps and bounds above that. WCW in the final months was Cult and WWE is still selling to large venues all over the US. If they were Cult they would just concentrate on their biggest draws.

[K-Nection]

Not to mention that with the change to TV giving no worker pop, that handicaps it further.

 

Wait....What? When did that happen....I was wondering why the AI can't hardly grow worker pop. What are the circumstances for this change because I don't see it in the patch notes....explain?????

[kn23m]

The WWE recently held their first live broadcast event from Japan. From what I've seen, attendance was about 8500. Which is comparable to what New Japan draws for some of its non-major events (New Beginning, Dominion, Invasion Attack, etc). Similarly, they just pulled 11.5k for a live event in Mexico City, which I think is better than what CMLL and AAA do for most shows outside of maybe their biggest events. Its hard to gauge too much from a one off event or even a couple of shows, but its evidence that there is some actual WWE popularity in those regions.

 

Most of the events held in the UK and Europe are house shows, with typically one or two TV broadcasts or tapings. The attendances are typically fairly strong. Some quick stats I found - they ran a total of 70 shows in the UK on the November tours from 2012-2014 and the attendance averages ranged from 5300 to 6100 per show. That's pretty solid. They can hit 10k for a TV broadcast over there.

 

Putting them at the spillover level of E doesn't make that possible. Again, the novelty factor of only being over there once a year is a factor, most definitely. But putting them at a level where they can draw a decent crowd for a show, where they can get on PPV or TV (which they are), that seems more legit.

Like I wrote before - all those are house shows!! By looking at events (Raw + PPV) from WWE in 2014 in real life... 49 out of 52 Raw were held in USA, 2 in UK and only 1 (ONE!!) in Canada... All 12 WWE PPV where held in USA, so more then 95% of WWE events in 2014 were held in USA!!

And now look at the data from one of real world mods after a year of simulation... Only 26 out of 48 Raw's were held in USA (from which 7 were in Puerto Rico and 3 in Hawaii were in real life WWE haven't held their shows there, so in reality this number is not even 26 out of 48, but 16 out of 48), 19 were held in Canada (!!compared to 1 in real life!!), 2 in UK (both in Scotland, which in real life they haven't held a Raw too, so off again) and 1 in Japan... With PPV it is the same: 6 in USA, 4 in Canada, 1 in Japan, 1 in UK (Ireland LOL)!! So in this mod WWE only 53% (if we count Hawaii and Puerto Rico too, if not then it's only 36%) of their events held in USA compared to real life 95% - the question is - is this really a real world mod or another fantasy mod...!?!

It is good that you are looking at attendances and are trying to get them right, because that is one more thing in which most so called "real world" mods fail and even one of those moders wrote that getting attendances right is the last thing that he worries about - LOL - really - then based on what he is determining promotion size, if not how many asses they are putting in seats!?! And then we see in those "real world" mods that TNA constantly have a 4k+ attendances (sometimes even 10k - really!?!) what they NEVER had or will have in real life!! So my question here is again - is this really a real world mod or another fantasy mod...!?!

[K-Nection]

Like I wrote before - all those are house shows!! By looking at events (Raw + PPV) from WWE in 2014 in real life... 49 out of 52 Raw were held in USA, 2 in UK and only 1 (ONE!!) in Canada... All 12 WWE PPV where held in USA, so more then 95% of WWE events in 2014 were held in USA!!

And now look at the data from one of real world mods after a year of simulation... Only 26 out of 48 Raw's were held in USA (from which 7 were in Puerto Rico and 3 in Hawaii were in real life WWE haven't held their shows there, so in reality this number is not even 26 out of 48, but 16 out of 48), 19 were held in Canada (!!compared to 1 in real life!!), 2 in UK (both in Scotland, which in real life they haven't held a Raw too, so off again) and 1 in Japan... With PPV it is the same: 6 in USA, 4 in Canada, 1 in Japan, 1 in UK (Ireland LOL)!! So in this mod WWE only 53% (if we count Hawaii and Puerto Rico too, if not then it's only 36%) of their events held in USA compared to real life 95% - the question is - is this really a real world mod or another fantasy mod...!?!

It is good that you are looking at attendances and are trying to get them right, because that is one more thing in which most so called "real world" mods fail and even one of those moders wrote that getting attendances right is the last thing that he worries about - LOL - really - then based on what he is determining promotion size, if not how many asses they are putting in seats!?! And then we see in those "real world" mods that TNA constantly have a 4k+ attendances (sometimes even 10k - really!?!) what they NEVER had or will have in real life!! So my question here is again - is this really a real world mod or another fantasy mod...!?!

 

The game AI can't replicate the RW no matter how much coding you put into it. You can't tell the game to only run 2 shows in the UK and 1 in Japan. I'm actually glad BigPoppa is taking the time to pay attention to these details and get the attendances right. If you want to truly split hairs then he would have to raise the popularity even more to match house show attendance as its harder to sell those out lol! The second you turn on TEW all real world mods turn into fantasy mods because no matter how you look at it you are not going to play the exact same as what occurred in real life.

[Bigpapa42]

Yup, they are mostly house shows. But house shows that outdraw the US house shows. As K-Nection points out, you cannot perfectly emulate reality with the game. The AI is going to do certain things that won't be exact to reality and you can't necessarily force them to do it otherwise. But as Derek points out, its about playability above "reality".

 

Yes, the AI will run shows outside of the US more frequently than they really do if you have them at least a mid-level of popularity in those areas. That's not realistic.

 

However, if you drop the popularity to spillover levels, you lose other aspects. No shows are viable in those areas, either by the AI or the user. You cannot get or maintain a TV deal. You may not be able to get a PPV deal. None of those are realistic either. So its a choice. Besides which, the WWE realistically is almost as popular in Canada as it is in the United States, so dropping that popularity to an unrealistic level to get the game to realistically emulate the frequency of shows doesn't strike me as an appealing compromise.

 

I am looking at attendances but they are not an overriding concern. I would strongly prefer to get the grades and growth right. Attendances being off has a slight financial effect but its a much smaller overall effect than the grades and growth being messed up.

[Bigpapa42]

Double post but I didn't have time to mention this before.

 

So after some consideration and tinkering last night, I think I'm changing my approach. The sheer number of workers left to edit in the data I was using is too much, yet I also don't like leaving half of them un-adjusted. So I took another closer look at Fleisch's 2013 RWC data. Setting the start date back to the start of 2013 generated about two dozen errors.... which took about 5 minutes to resolve. It starts with 26 promotions and about 1150 workers. After a few small tweaks, I ran a test sim thru 2 years and it looks pretty solid and smooth. The top talent from Japan dominated the Power 500 so I'll see if that happens every time or not. And TNA grew back to National, so that probably requires some tweaking too.

 

Although there are a few workers to adjust, most of the work will be adjusting the data for the start and importing. Adjusting rosters isn't that huge to do but redoing the titles and lineages is a bit onerous. Already done the WWE, TNA, and ROH. So just 23 more promotions to go. I figure that I will target to have about 40 active promotions at the start, covering most areas - although Australia is probably gonna get left out. Maybe another 10 set to open down the road. I will probably also look for about 2k workers in total. This seems like a better approach.

[Infernalmiko]

Seems reasonable. You have to manage your time to get the best result. I'm curious, do people just kind of stat wrestlers on the fly or do they get an idea of what role the wrestler occupies and develop from there.

 

I typically generally rank top row stats as far as 90-100 = One of the best of all time, 80-89 = one of the best in the world currently, etc etc. I've been trying ton combine the statistics threads with DErek's work. Then I get a picture of the wrestler in my head. For minor league brawler Yuiga I just have an image of a veteran brawler with average skills but solid basics, safety, etc to represent she's been around for a long time without working full time for anyone but various promotions find a use for her now and then wrestling younger wrestlers.

 

A former star like Aja Kong is more complicated. She's no longer a main event title contender and tends to wrestler a little further down the card but she almost never jobs, so when it does happen it's a bigger deal.

[kn23m]

Yup, they are mostly house shows. But house shows that outdraw the US house shows. As K-Nection points out, you cannot perfectly emulate reality with the game. The AI is going to do certain things that won't be exact to reality and you can't necessarily force them to do it otherwise. But as Derek points out, its about playability above "reality".

I really don't understand what potential playability issues come with setting no popularity outside USA?!? That user or AI won't be able to hold events outside USA (in fact it will, but may lose money), just like real WWE is not doing it - is 9 USA regions not enough to chose from?!? For God sake, you can even book each Raw, Smackdown and PPV in different region each month!!

Imagine if real WWE would hold any of Raw in France or Mexico and in opening segment Seth Rollins will come out and start one of his "famous" 20min+ monologues and majority in the crowd won't even understand what the hell he is trying to say (language barrier) - that segment will boom big time and after 10min half of the crowd would be leaving (or not, but still - you get the picture)!!

 

However, if you drop the popularity to spillover levels, you lose other aspects. No shows are viable in those areas, either by the AI or the user. You cannot get or maintain a TV deal. You may not be able to get a PPV deal. None of those are realistic either. So its a choice.

Really?!?

WWE Raw is shown on Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 and Sky Sports 3 and the biggest audience share of these channels have Sky Sports 1 with 0,97% (others 0,45% and 0,18% respectively, the leader is BBC with 21,46% followed by ITV with 13,21%) - put it as tiny or very small coverage across UK and even with spillover popularity you won't have any problems to maintain that TV deal!! I guess that there is a similar situation with Canada or maybe they are on bigger network there (with small or medium coverage at best) + there are so many different aspects that you can set for networks, that it should never be a factor in the first place!!

As far as I know there are no such thing as PPV in Europe and in UK it exists, but the audience share for Sky Box Office (which were showing WWE PPV before WWE Network were launched) is 0,01%, so it will warrant what - tiny coverage across UK?!? And I would imagine that WWE buyrates in UK was as tiny as that PPV carriers audience share, so it will just simulate reality!!

 

Besides which, the WWE realistically is almost as popular in Canada as it is in the United States, so dropping that popularity to an unrealistic level to get the game to realistically emulate the frequency of shows doesn't strike me as an appealing compromise.

How that "realistically" translates in in-game terms?!? That WWE almost 50% of their events hold in Canada, while in reality they not even 5% of their events hold in Canada?!? And what's the drawback of having no popularity in Canada, beside the feeling that they are as popular there as in USA?!? I guess that NONE!!

 

The real question is - do you want to make a real world database that simulates real world or you want to make yet another fantasy database that is based on real world characters...!?! That's, of course, up to you - good luck!!