Road to Stardom Challenge

[TheFlamingred]

Road to Stardom - Challenge

Live the Wrestler's Life.

I love the Road to glory Challenge - and while I modify the rules a little to enhance my own enjoyment from it, I stumbled onto another style of playthough which. I have thought about before, but which hasn't really been possible until now.

 

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Backstory.

 

I love the idea of WreSpi, but I could never get into it. In essence, it was a statistic based beat-em-up with the goal of beat your opponent. Only, we know that's not how wrestlers work, they're a small cog in a big machine. Their part is to work on their skills, create awesome matches when asked, put people over when told to, try to get people to buy into you and the product. WreSpi fails a little there, as I'd love to play a game where I am the wrestler, and my goal is to make that A*...

 

[in honesty, I'd love to see Adam make a sim where the whole intent of the WreSpi match engine is to put on as best a match as you can with your current stats, working with your opponent, not against them]

 

But until such a game exists, I wondered if I could emulate it a little in TEW. I've tried it before, but it's very hard to not give yourself the edge, seeing as you're booking everyone and everything. But not anymore, due to a quite intelligent Autobooker,

 

So I've been trying to come up with a set of rules so that we can move from live the life of the Booker to live the life of the Wrestler. I have a base system but want to open it up to others for ideas,

 

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Setup

 

You start off as a small Indy wrestler in a small fed (thunder verse on release would be awesome for this). You stats are determined by the rules the same as those on the Road to Glory challenge. You assign yourself to a small fed, but you actually don't book anything, instead letting the Autobooker decide almost everything.

 

From here, you work as a wrestler, limiting the amount of booking or other takes to a bare minimum, You must use autopush once a month on everyone (excluding anyone who gets weird autopushes) and not change any pushes till the next month.

 

If you are in a fed that requires storylines, you can only make new storylines based on recent matches the Autobooker has booked. If people's gimmick get stale, then tweak them or alter them as you think any mid level employee would do to keep things afloat.

 

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Gameplay

 

You begin by getting yourself in the correct Autopush, and then when it is time to book a show, you let the Autobooker book the entire thing. But you can make alterations based on a number of Perks which you have, based on the assignment of your push. The Perks are cumulative - meaning that as a Midcarder, you still get all perks from Lower-Midcarders and Openiers.

 

As an enhancement talent / opener. You are merely along for the ride, doing whatever the Autobooker tells you to do, unable to change anything. But you do get perks which you can use,

 

Enhancement talent /Opener

Perk : Dark Match

If you are not included for the show, add yourself and another unused worker in a Pre-show dark Match. You can set the length and sensible booking notes (e.g., you can't dominate), but you cannot decide on the finish (the Ai will do that as the show runs). Use this opportunity to boost skills.

 

Lower mid carder :

Perk : Tag Partner

You are able to form a tag team with anyone one the roster on, or one above your level, who is of the same disposition.

 

Mid carder :

Perk: Storyline

Up until now you were too small to be apart of the storyline. Now, you can start (and end) storylines with people you have had a match with in the last month (costs Prestige Points - more points per push of opponent). You can modify any angles you're involved in to tell the story, but you cannot change any minor/major victory/defeat which have been booked, nor any participants (you can bump down any non upper mid card / maineventer match to give you more air time).

 

Upper mid carder :

Perk: Spotlight

Not so good in a few with 100% match rating, but otherwise, you can add or modify yourself into angles within the show (cost of Prestige points). Minor and major victory add to the cost. Minor and major defeats reduce the cost.

 

Main events :

Perk: Control

You can now swap your opponent with any other worker who is below you on the card. You can overwrite all booking notes other then the victor note. You can also alter the match type/gimmick (though it must continue to be the same length overall)

 

Top 5 Draw

Perk: Overshadow

For the cost of prestige points, you can change the victor note to your favour. People who are a higher draw then you are immune to this.

Perk: Outshine

If you are draw number 1, you may select yourself company figurehead. After the year to see if it is a success, you can move to another company of your choice which is one level above your current company (use the editor to make the booking vacancy, and increase your booking reputation if needed - I don't think there is any problems in this approach). This will cost a lot of Points, but you should have them.

 

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Prestige points

Are based on your match rating. (From any one match per show).

//lots of options here... Could add bonus for good angles too. Could Do these points based off of individual performance on the road agents notes. I have not done enough testing to find a good balance here yet, but hope to within the next couple of weeks.

 

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Moving company.

 

Okay, due to game limit, you can only move company if there is a booking slot available, unless you've got the figurehead route. But, if there is a booking slot available, there is nothing stopping you from taking a slot one company size up from you.

 

In fact, this is where tactics come to play. Depending where the company is and how over you are, will mean you may end up with a worse push, and thus, have less say in your development. Having to spring between big fish little pond and small fish in giant pond is what I imagine most wrestlers go through, unless they're popular enough to get decent pushes upon entry. Still, bigger companies Normally have better workers, so you're skills will normally increase better.

 

The three main ways to move companies are.

 

1 - Be oppertunistic in taking Booking Jobs (which for immersion, means there is a vacancy for your user character). You cannot move above one size level of your current company. You may not adjust your booking reputation for the role (as this goes up naturally based on your time working for your current company)

 

2 - Using the Figurehead perk. If you are a figurehead of a company, then all bigger by one (or equal) size company wishes to sign you. You basically take your pick.

 

3 -By an End of Year Signing, roll stated below.

 

Note: After any movement of company which is one size bigger then you, you must reset your Booking Reputation to lowest, to mimic paying your dues at this new level.

 

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End year roll

 

I am sure we can have lots of rolls like the RtG challenge - and suggestions are welcome but I've not been looking at those details thus far. But what I was thinking more of, was a percentage based 'we want to sign you':

 

Filter companies to Minimum: your current company size, Maximum: one above the minimum. Based on the list, select three random ones (using a number generator)

 

Roll a d100 for each company. Take that value and use it to see if they want to sign you, based on your push.

 

If the company is the same size as yours. They want to sign if if their number is

Enhance - under 3

Opener - under 5

Lower - under 16

Mid - under 24

Upper - under 50

Main - under 100

 

If the company is the next size up

Enhance - 1

Opener - under 3

Lower - under 8

Mid - under 12

Upper - under 25

Main - under 50

 

Just because someone wants to sign you, doesn't mean you have to go there. Sometimes you will have no options, sometimes you'll have all 3. If you want to go to one, pick one, and sort yourself the position in the editor, and apply for that position (raising booking reputation if needed).

 

//nb: this isn't balanced, numbers are chosen arbitrarily.

 

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Side effects.

 

The side effect of this, is We're not using TEW for its intended purpose, almost repurposing the game to sim a different genre. While I can defiantly see some interesting diaries of this style of game come out, in terms of duties as a Booker, the user will still have to do some things.

 

For this section, you should probably put on the cap of a not very creative Booker, You should probably only hire people when one of your roster leaves. You should negotiate contracts basically accosting anything not stupid, You don't invest in the businesses outside of common sense. You make locker room decisions based on common sense. The idea is you are as hands off the booking side as reasonable. If your company is going under, well... It goes under.

 

The fact is, this style of game is about moving your character through companies, not growing them directly. If the company is naturally growing in popularity, then make a to deal. If it's finances are good but it's looking amateurish in production, increase it, just don't go overboard, changing product, bringing in the bet workers you know of and trimming the current roster.

 

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The Goal

 

Long term: Become the maineventer in the number 1 company, and headline the main event of a Legendary event.

 

Get into the Hall of fame (I assume user characters can).

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This is as far as I have gotten. I initially came up with some of this in Tew2013, but never got as far as the Booking Assistant was far more random then the new Auto-Booker.

 

I know this will not be everyone's scene, as it's a lot of sim work and ignoring the key mechanics of what makes TEW16 great. For me, this will be something I hold a save of beside my regular booking saves, as it's far less maintenance and long term strategic as you're living the life of just one cog in the huge TEW machine. But until a wrestling game where you play the life of a wrestler, working up your way in the company by putting in good matches with your scheduled opponent, going by the bookers rules, using actual psychology to make a good match - then this is the closest thing I have to that,

 

For any interested in the idea, feel free to leave suggestions and ideas below. I'd like to develop the idea more, and have several less developed ideas for gameplay and perks. But I am sure many of you will know TEW much better then I, and have hundreds of possible ideas for this style of playthrough that I have not even began to imagine.

[Sons of Kohral]

Looks really cool, innovative and interesting, the only issue is literarally moving up companies. I can see being stuck in "indy hell" for 15 years, easily, even if you're main eventing and champion. The only thing I can think of is cheesing it where you switch characters at a certain point, then switch back to yours and place yourself in a company a size up.

 

I don't know what the arbitrary "move up" stat would be though. Maybe after certain amount of title defenses or something.

 

I'll give this a test after I get bored of my NYCW game.

 

I think a smart strategy is, especially in lower feds, to try and form a tag team, ASAP. You'll have higher chances of being placed in title matches.

[Lex Star]

This is really interesting, I might try this out at one point. Interestingly enough I am using Auto-Booker right now in my RTG game.

[TheFlamingred]

Looks really cool, innovative and interesting, the only issue is literarally moving up companies. I can see being stuck in "indy hell" for 15 years, easily, even if you're main eventing and champion. The only thing I can think of is cheesing it where you switch characters at a certain point, then switch back to yours and place yourself in a company a size up.

 

I don't know what the arbitrary "move up" stat would be though. Maybe after certain amount of title defenses or something.

 

I'll give this a test after I get bored of my NYCW game.

 

I think a smart strategy is, especially in lower feds, to try and form a tag team, ASAP. You'll have higher chances of being placed in title matches.

 

You might be right, the challenge is very much a WIP as I only began testing it yesterday. But at the same time, most companies at local normally raise in size to small. And in the current Cverse, there is no companies at international / global. So really, in terms of elevation there are not many minimum steps : small - regional - cult - national. (And even if you are you are only bare bones booking, it's quite feasible to move small to regional within the same company.)

 

There are other ways to determine when you're ready to move on though, for example, replace the random end of year hiring roll with that of a system where One random company is interested in you once you have 10 grade E matches at local, or 12 grade D matches at small, or 15 grade C matches at regional, etc etc.

 

I am thinking that it should be easier to switch sideways, to same size companies - because especially if you move country, your overness will really suffer and you're moving down the push in the new company hierarchy.

 

Balance will be the key issue here, but that too may need to be readjusted if people play the Thunderverse mod, because of how many options there will then be.

 

I'm doing more tests over the next few days as this style of game has excited me a quite excited. Unlike RtG and my normal playthroughs where I normally develop a loyalty to my starting company, the goal here is to actively switch companies, and as you're not booking the entire thing, you're able to be hands off most things but focus on your own user development.

 

For me, I have almost exclusively played USA and UK companies, and know little outside it? Now I could take a flashy aerial character to work in Japan for a few years, and not feel the pressure of having to learn how to book them outright - instead focusing on their key values and key players, before moving to the next company.

[TheFlamingred]

This is really interesting, I might try this out at one point. Interestingly enough I am using Auto-Booker right now in my RTG game.

 

Yes, I had never imagined how awesome an Autobooker would be. I was very surprised it made it's way into the game, as I was sure that Adam was so against it's inclusion that it was never to be introduced. I too, was skeptical of its use too, as I rarely used the Assistant Booker in 2013.

 

I originally was only using the Autobooker as a way to quickly Sim shows to test in the demo (as per our 0/0/0/0 thread) but while doing that, I also saw the possibility to use it, and then the whole game engine for this entirely different gameplay focus