Is TEW Too Easy as a Big Company?

[TeemuFoundation]

I like to play as WWF or WCW during the "dark times" of 1993-1995. I've done it many times. I seem to run into the same problem constantly, though: the game gets easy after a few years of game time.

 

I know the popular answer is that I should play as a smaller company, but the thing is that I like playing as the WWF from my childhood and try out different routes with it.

 

I make my own mods, and usually give the WWF as low a popularity as possible, F- momentum and only a small amount of money to make it harder, but after a certain number of good shows, I start making a profit and once that starts, it's almost too hard to screw up.

 

Sometimes I only run 4-5 PPVs per year and missing out on that PPV revenue hurts my finances, but that's the only way I've managed to make the game "hard".

 

Can anyone relate? I wish there was some added difficulty for those of us that enjoy playing as the bigger companies, since it's not always hunky dory for the big companies, either - although obviously having money makes it easier to make more money, that's just a fact of life and the market.

[DAVEFAN95]

No, see USPW in the C-Verse. It is very hard to stay national at the start of the game.

 

In your games (WWF/WCW in 93-95), lets look at WWF's roster in January 93. You have Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Undertaker, Hogan, Mr. Perfect, Flair, the Steiner brothers, Shawn Micahaels, Razor Ramon, Diesel, Yokozuna. There are enough wrestlers that are over enough and talented enough that your popularity will rise over time and eventually start earning money. Its the roster that is making it easy, not the company.

 

And WCW are the exact same story, they had Sting, Sid Vicious, Vader, Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat, Ron Simmons and Cactus Jack to say the least. Again there is enough talent and popular guys, that you will rise in pop and earn money over an extended time period.

 

So it's the wrestlers in the company more than the actual company itself that's making it easy, and the way I see it, there's no way to avoid that.

[Peter.1986]

No, see USPW in the C-Verse. It is very hard to stay national at the start of the game.

 

In your games (WWF/WCW in 93-95), lets look at WWF's roster in January 93. You have Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Undertaker, Hogan, Mr. Perfect, Flair, the Steiner brothers, Shawn Micahaels, Razor Ramon, Diesel, Yokozuna. There are enough wrestlers that are over enough and talented enough that your popularity will rise over time and eventually start earning money. Its the roster that is making it easy, not the company.

 

And WCW are the exact same story, they had Sting, Sid Vicious, Vader, Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat, Ron Simmons and Cactus Jack to say the least. Again there is enough talent and popular guys, that you will rise in pop and earn money over an extended time period.

 

So it's the wrestlers in the company more than the actual company itself that's making it easy, and the way I see it, there's no way to avoid that.

 

This is partly the reason.

 

Another part of the reason is how realistic the mod is. Maybe everyone thinks hulk hogan and bret hart were A* popularity at their peaks, but maybe in TEW terms hulk hogan was A and bret was B+ then judging by that the workers stats, which could possibly be overpowered in tew terms. As well as the fact of workers decline ages and their peaks, so all these wrestlers maybe be already overpowered compared to 'TEW' terms, but then they improve as well.

 

The second reason is you have foresight, (1 beacause you know who becomes good in real life and 2 because you made the mod) with this foresight you can pick up and build workers who you know are going to turn out good (in a 97 mod I started in 93 I picked up the rock, triple h, Goldberg, big show all when they entered the world at F- and my plan to make them Main eventters was always going to work with them on lowly paid contracts.

 

In real life you may never see hulk hogan declining, so offer him a 10 year contract with a stupid wage to beat rivals, crestive control and all the perks. The month after his physical decline could set in, which could mean you would have to let younger people who aren't established go, meaning you would have to cut people like the rock, triple h at a young age as you couldn't afford the gamble. Only for your opposition to pick them up and make them stars for cheap.

 

So it's not the game that's easy it's the world you're playing in.

 

For example if there was an investment based game, you would put everything you had into Facebook in 2006, finding it easy when your competitors lost a lot of investments in banks 2 years later

[TeemuFoundation]

You both made good points.

 

Though I have to say that I try to make my mods as realistic as possible. Bret Hart, in my eyes, never reached A* popularity, and Hogan really wasn't there in 1993. Steve Austin, The Rock and Hogan in their primes have been the only three wrestlers in the real world to have reached A*, in my opinion.

 

I have a slightly different take on "popularity" in the game: it's not how loudly the crowd reacts, it's how much money the wrestlers draw.

 

Take CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, for example: the crowd went nuts for them when they came out, yet neither of them moved the needle, and made no difference financially in the company. Punk had his merch sales, but as far as ratings grabbing, Punk was actually pretty low on the totem pole. PPVs headlined by Bryan, namely SummerSlam 2013, did terrible business, too.

 

I'm not sure if this the correct way of looking at popularity in TEW, but that's why I make my own mods.

 

Stuff like potential, decline, etc. are all set to random, of course.

[MrSelfDestruct]

that an issue I have with real world mods is the top stars have to be SO GOOD, it takes away. But I run with it. Love the Main Event mod and pulling 100s between Hulk and Piper.

 

The game is definitely easier as you go on in terms of stats, thats why

I put more effort into making teams/alliances, developing characters/workers, storylines. I find it much easier to do with the C-Verse

[TheZies]

I have a slightly different take on "popularity" in the game: it's not how loudly the crowd reacts, it's how much money the wrestlers draw.

 

 

that's an interesting way to look at it. Hmmm.

[Peter.1986]

You both made good points.

 

Though I have to say that I try to make my mods as realistic as possible. Bret Hart, in my eyes, never reached A* popularity, and Hogan really wasn't there in 1993. Steve Austin, The Rock and Hogan in their primes have been the only three wrestlers in the real world to have reached A*, in my opinion.

 

I have a slightly different take on "popularity" in the game: it's not how loudly the crowd reacts, it's how much money the wrestlers draw.

 

Take CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, for example: the crowd went nuts for them when they came out, yet neither of them moved the needle, and made no difference financially in the company. Punk had his merch sales, but as far as ratings grabbing, Punk was actually pretty low on the totem pole. PPVs headlined by Bryan, namely SummerSlam 2013, did terrible business, too.

 

I'm not sure if this the correct way of looking at popularity in TEW, but that's why I make my own mods.

 

Stuff like potential, decline, etc. are all set to random, of course.

 

What I mean is, it's your judgement, not the games judgement. If they were able to release a real world patch it would be great. But it's not just about popularity it's about every single worker attribute, the game may not be designed to have more than 2 workers working at the same time with A star quality, but we might think we'll the rock, has it, stone cold has it, hulk has it, Andre the giant had it, undertaker and so on.

 

Because the stats are what make the grades which increase and decrease popularity. I started my game in 93 I think it was, with hulk at C+ pop highest rated in the game, and all newcomers to debut at F- over the years wcw went bankrupt 3 times (I kept adding them again as wcw2 then 3 then 4) by 97 we were against our 4th WCW but my main 5 workers were all A pop or had been A and dropped to B+ (mankind, undertaker, Kane, stone cold, rock, triple h)

 

So popularity wasn't an issue as the game started with C+ the highest workers pop, and I had my communities set low,

 

So really is it wrong that at some point kane (for a short period became and A and dropped to a B, stone cold rock hhh and undertaker became an A?

 

I don't think it is, but I already knew which guys to push

 

It's not that we would be wrong, but in tew terms it wouldn't work.

 

I think with real life (historical) mods were always going to have it easy because the computer is playing like they are in that time with no insight into the future, but we know everything

[Bigpapa42]

I have a slightly different take on "popularity" in the game: it's not how loudly the crowd reacts, it's how much money the wrestlers draw.

 

Take CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, for example: the crowd went nuts for them when they came out, yet neither of them moved the needle, and made no difference financially in the company. Punk had his merch sales, but as far as ratings grabbing, Punk was actually pretty low on the totem pole. PPVs headlined by Bryan, namely SummerSlam 2013, did terrible business, too.

 

I'm not sure if this the correct way of looking at popularity in TEW, but that's why I make my own mods.

 

There is a drawback to this approach to popularity, though. The WWE has moved toward drawing more as a brand than based on individual talent. I don't think any names "move the needle" for the company anymore. Did they experience any ratings and buy-rate bumps in the past few years when Cena is on top? Orton? Lesnar? The Rock? From what I know, TV ratings have been rather meh for a few years and PPV buy-rates were pretty crap outside of WM before they introduced the WWE Network and sent buyrates out the window. But they buy-rate issue is a reflection of the decline of the PPV business model as much as anything. Beyond that, you also have to consider that pretty much the entire time that Punk was "on top" with the title, he was still second fiddle to Cena, so it becomes really difficult to assess what is him and what isn't.

 

As for the original question, yes. They do tend to become easy as time goes on. A big factor is that they are popularity-based promotions and unless you really restrict yourself in how you book, building popularity isn't that difficult. Most of us look to develop young talent, so we end up with an insanely talented roster after 3-4 years. And we also "game the system", even if its not intentional, by avoiding situations that we know can have negative effects. Many of us will look to avoid pushing too heavily someone with a really bad attittude or a really bad addiction problem, for example, whereas in real life, promoters might still put their world title on a worker like Sid or Scott Steiner and just deal with it. We will look to avoid really toxic locker rooms or horrible morale in our midcard. One typically looks at addressing those issues as playing correctly, but real promoters didn't necessarily do that, so....

[TeemuFoundation]

There is a drawback to this approach to popularity, though. The WWE has moved toward drawing more as a brand than based on individual talent. I don't think any names "move the needle" for the company anymore. Did they experience any ratings and buy-rate bumps in the past few years when Cena is on top? Orton? Lesnar? The Rock? From what I know, TV ratings have been rather meh for a few years and PPV buy-rates were pretty crap outside of WM before they introduced the WWE Network and sent buyrates out the window. But they buy-rate issue is a reflection of the decline of the PPV business model as much as anything. Beyond that, you also have to consider that pretty much the entire time that Punk was "on top" with the title, he was still second fiddle to Cena, so it becomes really difficult to assess what is him and what isn't.

 

As for the original question, yes. They do tend to become easy as time goes on. A big factor is that they are popularity-based promotions and unless you really restrict yourself in how you book, building popularity isn't that difficult. Most of us look to develop young talent, so we end up with an insanely talented roster after 3-4 years. And we also "game the system", even if its not intentional, by avoiding situations that we know can have negative effects. Many of us will look to avoid pushing too heavily someone with a really bad attittude or a really bad addiction problem, for example, whereas in real life, promoters might still put their world title on a worker like Sid or Scott Steiner and just deal with it. We will look to avoid really toxic locker rooms or horrible morale in our midcard. One typically looks at addressing those issues as playing correctly, but real promoters didn't necessarily do that, so....

Absolutely certain workers move the needle. There just aren't many workers like that. The Rock, John Cena and Brock Lesnar are proven draws, and there's data to back that claim up.

 

I've never bought that "it's the brand that's the draw" argument, since they still go out of their way to get big names to appear at WrestleMania - because they draw. The Rock did huge business for them at WrestleManias 27, 28 and 29.

 

And they did put Punk in the main event at the beginning of his title push, but ratings and buyrates tanked, so they had to go back to Cena, eventhough Punk was the champion. I think it's got something to do with the fact that fans of guys like Punk and Bryan are more prone to watch shows via illegal streams and never paying for anything. That creates the new phenomena where a guy can be "arena over", but it doesn't translate to dollars.

[Bigpapa42]

Absolutely certain workers move the needle. There just aren't many workers like that. The Rock, John Cena and Brock Lesnar are proven draws, and there's data to back that claim up.

 

I've never bought that "it's the brand that's the draw" argument, since they still go out of their way to get big names to appear at WrestleMania - because they draw. The Rock did huge business for them at WrestleManias 27, 28 and 29.

 

And they did put Punk in the main event at the beginning of his title push, but ratings and buyrates tanked, so they had to go back to Cena, eventhough Punk was the champion. I think it's got something to do with the fact that fans of guys like Punk and Bryan are more prone to watch shows via illegal streams and never paying for anything. That creates the new phenomena where a guy can be "arena over", but it doesn't translate to dollars.

 

They do go out of their way for WM, but even headlining The Miz got them in excess of 1m buys. Putting The Rock against Cena got them about 200k extra. WM 25 hit almost 1m and there were a number of matches on that card that fans were not excited about, including the ME.

 

As for Punk, I've seen the argument before - they gave him a run at the top, he tanked, so they headlined Cena. But that doesn't really follow what they did. He won the title at Survivor Series 2011. The next PPV was TLC, headlined by Punk, Miz, and Del Rio. It didn't do well for buy-rates, but it never does. And Cena in the ME a year later still saw a drop in buy rates, so that doesn't exactly bode for Cena being a clear and better draw. Punk didn't headline the Royal Rumble, which is understandable. Ddin't headline Elimination Chamber. Didn't headline WrestleMania. Didn't headline Extreme Rules. Didn't headline Over the Limit - Cena versus a non-wrestler authority figure did. Didn't headline No Way Out. Didn't headline Money in the Bank. Didn't headline SummerSlam. Did headline Night of Champions. Did headline Hell in a Cell. Did headline Suvivor Series 2012. So over the course of that year, he headlined 4 of 12 PPVs, and only one of those was in the first half of the year. At almost no point in that year was he made to seem like The Guy. It was clear that Cena was more important when he had mathces with the likes of Kane and John Laurinitis headlining over the world champion. I am not hte biggest fan of CM Punk in the world and I don't think he could have been the new Steve Austin if they had really tried with him, but it also seems clear to me that they didn't really try. They clearly kept Cena on top for most of that reign.

[TeemuFoundation]

WrestleMania 27 was all about The Rock and John Cena. The Miz just happened to hold the belt.

[Bigpapa42]

WrestleMania 27 was all about The Rock and John Cena. The Miz just happened to hold the belt.

 

True enough. My point was basically that they don't have to go out of their way and do something like The Rock to get close to 1m buys. The Rock, Lesnar, Austin, whoever might be required to go well past the 1m buy mark, but a relatively standard WM like 24, 25, or 26 still gets them in the area of the 1m buy mark.

[Peter.1986]

WrestleMania 27 was all about The Rock and John Cena. The Miz just happened to hold the belt.

 

I suggested in the suggestions bit that workers have kind of a fan base attached to them based on their popularity.

 

At the moment each show attendance and tv rating is based on the company.

 

Where as if the rock went and headlined a ppv for tna in real life they would have a temporary ratings increase due to the rocks fan base, which would then over time gradually go back to the rating of the company popularity (which may or may not have risen due to the show rating and increase in pop)

[Mattywood]

Something else you have to consider, during that time period, wrestling got a bad stigma after the steroid allegations of the early 90s. Combine that with shoddy booking from both companies, and you have your early to mid 90s downturn. Whereas as others in this thread have mentioned, we have the hindsight to know that it's probably not a good idea to have Yokozuna beat Bret Hart at WM IX, then have Hogan beat him just a couple minutes later.

[vtechguy]

I think it's all about how the mod was constructed.

[Teh_Showtime]

Everything is easier when you are working with fixed numbers with little variance and you can manipulate numbers to get the desired grades

 

In real life there is no absolute way to say that you should put the title on Hogan because he has the best combination of popularity and charisma, it's all a judgement call in real life whereas in TEW you have hard evidence to go with.

 

There is no algorithm to make a great match in real life, there have been dozens of matches that looked great on paper and they were duds. In the game you arent going to see CM Punk and Chris Jericho have merely a good match despite their incredible skills. The game only works with absolutes

 

It's come a long way from EWR putting two 80 speed spot monkeys together and getting a 5 star match, mostly due to added stats, but the game still works the same way. It only knows numbers

[KnowYourEnemy]

In my opinion, it's harder to keep a national company in the CVerse (SWF, TCW and especially USPW) then it is to keep a national company afloat in many mods. I feel the CVerse is custom designed to fit the engine, while a mod is designed to represent a period.

 

I think it's hard to have balance in any RW mod, as a majority of the time WWF is either a clear #1 or dominating -- the exception being the Monday Night Wars, and even then, WWF is too big and WCW is usually too rich to fail.

[sheepy]

Is it worth playing around with the settings?

 

Eg making relationships and injuries high frequency, fog of war etc - the sort of stuff a big company in real life needs to worry about. You can also make your avatar a bit of an egomaniac and very anti social, to start creating a world of pain (give them poor diplomacy and negotiating skills as well).

 

Rather than changing your own company it can be worth boosting the funds and booking ability of a rival increasing the chances of them stealing your stars to capitalise on any workers you fall out with. I find it makes the game world a bit more dynamic and fluid at the top level.

[Teh_Showtime]

Relationships and backstage in general are too easy to manage

 

Aside from making someone lose to someone far below them the only things that get workers mad is not being used. It feels like the backstage stuff is just minor inconveniences as opposed to potentially huge things that you work with to handle the on screw product.

[SirMichaelJordan]

WrestleMania 27 was all about The Rock and John Cena. The Miz just happened to hold the belt.

 

Yea pretty much. That was Rock's return to the WWE after a long hiatus. Had nothing to do with the brand or The Miz. People who haven't watched wrestling in over a decade were watching just to see The Rock.

 

In a real world mod I say play with a high injury setting since you already know who are going to be good in the future, more injuries will make things a little unpredictable.

 

But none of that matters if the mod isn't balanced.

[franticloser]

I think instead of playing to be the biggest company or maintain that standard, you should look at trying to create great stories, not gaming them, but how they work in your head. As with any sandbox game, with TEW you can create your own goals, and try and achieve them.

[NWO4until01]

Seems to me what is effectively being argued is whether the industry status should have a bearing on popularity of individual workers? During the war years and just after it, you'd argue the industry was A in TEW terms or there abouts. Since then, I'd argue it's never gone beyond D+. The care factor for wrestling isn't there and probably won't be unless it enters a new era where something new captures a generation's interest.

I think Industry and Economy are well implemented in the game as you do suffer financial hits when they tank, thereby automatically downplaying how powerful an A+ worker popularity really is.

 

Going back to the original question... One of the most fundamental aspects of wrestling is not implemented properly in the game (it's watered down in significance), this being Star Quality = $$. There should be a far more significant link to both ability to make money and ability to gain pop with SQ. This would create a more balanced way of playing the game, therefore increasing difficulty in rising to the top as a company. There's more to it, but can't bothered getting into it right now... one for the suggestions forum.

[Comradebot]

I'll admit, I find it hard to discuss balance in TEW with any real world mod as the reference. They tend to be absolutely notorious for stat inflation (seriously, Randy Orton doesn't have anywhere near an A in microphone skills or charisma, and arguing that it's "necessary so you don't get bad grades with him" isn't one I'll ever, ever agree with), especially when it comes to top level stars/internet darlings. Not to mention TEW is designed to work across multiple game areas, but the real world of wrestling only has roughly the three (USA, Mexico, Japan... Canada might as well be USA these days. Also a solid presence in South Africa, but TEW doesn't have South Africa!)

 

And, of course, most mod makers are going to have even an unwitting bias towards the American scene because it's what they know best. You end up with two companies having access to all the absolute best workers in the world, many of which have probably been given generous grades in the stat department. The CornellVerse was the database the game was balanced around, after all.

 

Which it doesn't mean real world mods can't be fun, and I know at least a couple that take serious efforts to balance things out (and I'd hug them for it). My suggestion would be to take a run with a major C-Verse company and see if you still feel that things are too easy. I know they can easily become too easy with a good run of success (popularity tends to snowball, and once even your midcarders have B- overness across the nation...), but in my experience starting out of the gate all of them have a bit of a challenge to them. Save maybe SWF, where you're the top dog and really need to work in order to screw them up too badly.

[Peter.1986]

I'll admit, I find it hard to discuss balance in TEW with any real world mod as the reference. They tend to be absolutely notorious for stat inflation (seriously, Randy Orton doesn't have anywhere near an A in microphone skills or charisma, and arguing that it's "necessary so you don't get bad grades with him" isn't one I'll ever, ever agree with), especially when it comes to top level stars/internet darlings. Not to mention TEW is designed to work across multiple game areas, but the real world of wrestling only has roughly the three (USA, Mexico, Japan... Canada might as well be USA these days. Also a solid presence in South Africa, but TEW doesn't have South Africa!)

 

And, of course, most mod makers are going to have even an unwitting bias towards the American scene because it's what they know best. You end up with two companies having access to all the absolute best workers in the world, many of which have probably been given generous grades in the stat department. The CornellVerse was the database the game was balanced around, after all.

 

Which it doesn't mean real world mods can't be fun, and I know at least a couple that take serious efforts to balance things out (and I'd hug them for it). My suggestion would be to take a run with a major C-Verse company and see if you still feel that things are too easy. I know they can easily become too easy with a good run of success (popularity tends to snowball, and once even your midcarders have B- overness across the nation...), but in my experience starting out of the gate all of them have a bit of a challenge to them. Save maybe SWF, where you're the top dog and really need to work in order to screw them up too badly.

 

I'm playing war of the immortals and stone cd has an A in mic skills, people may disagree but I don't think stone colds mic ability was that great (especially in a all time greats world) his character was that over he could say what he wanted, but like the rock had a good 5 minutes or more every show and cut promos, stone cold did take to the mic but to me he wasn't an A on the mic.

 

Also val Venus is a B+ for mic, acting and charisma. I think mic wise a b- at most, he has the same mic rating as road dogg who was very good on the mic. Road dogg and val Venus both have better performance skills than billy gunn, who was a better wrestler than both and had really good selling skills but lacked charisma and star quality. So in this mod if you have these people it's easier to get them over that it would be because they are slightly overpowered in my opinion

[TheZies]

I'll admit, I find it hard to discuss balance in TEW with any real world mod as the reference. They tend to be absolutely notorious for stat inflation (seriously, Randy Orton doesn't have anywhere near an A in microphone skills or charisma, and arguing that it's "necessary so you don't get bad grades with him" isn't one I'll ever, ever agree with), especially when it comes to top level stars/internet darlings.

 

this is something I've looked at a couple of times while looking at some Real World Mods.

 

And I think sometimes we all confuse menace, charisma and star quality for all being the same thing. So a lot of times, someone will end up with two, when they only have one.

 

They shouldn't be. You have to ask "how is the guy getting over?"

 

Randy Orton has all the star quality in the world. But none of his segments can reach what Cena has over the same time.

 

Is Brock Lesnar that charismatic? Or is he as scary as F and just looks like a star? Heyman helps push him to that super over level

 

AJ Styles has all the ring work in the world. But lacks in those keys areas to be top in the world.

 

Just to give some real world comparisons. All those guys can get over, but they all get over for different reasons. And if done right with the right amount of other skills, they can get really over (barring a bad destiny roll).

 

 

 

But as far as too easy? Yeah, usually. I mean look at the destiny roll I got with my Vader in a 1991 Mod (which is one of those really well done mods mentioned.). He's charismatic, menacing and has star quality (he's even 90 sex appeal). He can go with anyone in the ring. So yeah, using him is super easy. But it's still fun since I usually tend to lean toward storytelling when I'm working as a major company.