Difference between bumping and selling lost in TEW

[Self]

What it could do is make certain workers more suited to certain products. So for a high spot heavy, X-Division/PWG style product where you're expected to do a million movez, the equation would use bumping more than of selling. It's not that there isn't selling in those match, it's just less important. And for a safer, lower impact, or more story driven product, it would use selling over bumping. A guy like Dolph Ziggler, with his spectacular bouncey bumps off even the most simple moves, would be better suited to PWG than a Regal or Foley. Not just offensively but defensively.

 

I also consider it a factor in babyface/heel. Heels bump, babyfaces sell. Heels bump around for the hot tag or big comeback. Babyfaces take the heat and try to gain sympathy from the crowd.

[djthefunkchris]

spectacular bouncey bumps

 

This needs to be a catchphrase, lol. You described Dolph so well.

[HollywoodRx]

For me the selling skill is the efficiency of the selling, how real it looks in a match.

 

With that in mind, Shawn Michaels in 2005 against Hogan, or the usual overselling of the Rock, or Lio Rush actually, they would have a D grade. The Road Warriors, the Giant or Goldberg would have a better grade, because the non-selling is part of how a match look real for them. If Goldberg sell like Benoit, it would look really fake and he would have a E.

[TeemuFoundation]

Not anymore than the GM modes in the WWE games is.

The more stats the better. It's a management sim. If you want shallow gameplay, play WWE 2K.

 

Before saying anything, I want to say that this is just my opinion, I don't want to undermine other people's views and preferences. Debates on GDS rarely go well, so I wanted to make this clear.

 

But I very much disagree that if you simplified the worker stats, TEW would be reduced to something like a 2K WWE game. First off, TEW is much more than just the worker stats. There's an entire game outside of that. And that alone makes it more deep and immersive than the 2K WWE games. I actually haven't played one since, idk, 2006 or something, but I have the general idea.

 

To me, the in ring work of a worker in a TEW game can be simplified to the following:

 

Athleticism: The actual physical ability to execute.

Psychology: The understanding of what, when, and why to execute. The mental part of wrestling. This includes telling a story, selling, everything that has to do with knowlededge of how to pull off an engaging professional wrestling match.

 

And perhaps experience could be its own thing, as well, even though it could also be lumped in with psychology. But one could argue that raw experience is something more than just that. Also, stamina I could see being its own thing. In general, more emphasis on the athletic capabilities would be better than the arbitrary "brawling", "submissions", etc.

 

I just personally have never seen much value in "brawling", "submissions", etc. because they just don't really reflect in the gameplay much. A worker uses his best top rop row strats, right? I don't see a reason to specify which stats he uses; is he brawling, being technical, or high flying, since of course a wrestler wrestles his or her style. That's every wrestler ever. No brawler all of a sudden decides to have an aerial match. People do what they're good at.

 

And this could be handled with "style". A wrestler could be a brawler, a technician, high flyer, all rounder, etc. Styles could even be more versatile, honestly. I think that's where the complexity could come into play.

 

Say, you have someone like a Bret Hart. You could just tick boxes of all the styles he can do. Bret Hart could do technical, and he could also brawl. Those were two main styles he could do.

 

What does it really matter whether his brawling is 80 or 84? Or whether his submissions are 97 or 100?

 

This just makes mod making much more tedious, and it forces real world mod makers to have more guess work and estimates because no one will ever accurately nail Bret Hart's ability to brawl. Is it 87 or 88?

 

So the stats will never be accurate anyway, so why even bother? That's my opinion.

 

Imagine how much bigger the mod community would be if we didn't have to spend all the time setting a million sliders to estimated, sometimes even random, values when creating workers. And a bigger mod community would mean more real world mods, and a bigger player base, too.

 

I think the new attributes will do a great job in making workers unique anyway, which would furhter allow the worker stats to be simplified. Especially if it's going to incldue stuff like "workes well with big workers" which will have an effect on the match rating, and will be a far more intuitive way to "craft" certain types of workers in a realistic manner.

 

As opposed to fiddling with the 0-100 sliders.

 

This is just my opinion, though. I never expect this to happen. And I like the games anyway, so this isn't a rant or anything. Just a thought.

[Derek B]

Hey Teemu,

 

A looooong time ago I remember playing Promotion Wars which had a similar approach to stats as the one you are talking about there. It was a very different experience and absolutely didn't appeal to me because the lack of definition in styles made it so that everyone seemed basically the same. I'd compare it to streamlining a game like Football Manager where you could in theory just replace all the skills to "talent" and a few attributes.... it would remove so much of the uniqueness of every player, where the difference of a point or two here or there can make for a very different style of player.

 

For TEW, in the short term the difference of a few points int he short term may not be noticeable or mean much... which is why you can just set things like variance in the database to a larger level and quickly use the text inputs (which have been available since TEW13, I think) to add a loads of stats in a hurry to values like 80/90 and know that the game can put the finer detail on there. So much faster, so much easier.

 

The greater range of points is what makes it possible to have a viable skill development system too. If there were (for example) a ten point system for "ring work", "experience" and "mental skills" then when would people get better at those? And how? Would it be a random step up or down? Would a worker gain a full point bump, essentially becoming ten points better in one step when compared to the current system? I played EWD when it was an active game back in the DOS days and I don't think many people want to go back to that style of gameplay again.

 

Also as a counter to your point of workers sticking to their best skills.... you see workers evolving their style over time all over the place in real wrestling. HBK used to be known as a high flyer in his early days but he got better at every style, to the point of him being able to have world class technical style matches if he wanted or world class brawls too. Kurt Angle and AJ Styles were also specialists in one style at a young age but got better at others too. And by doing so demonstrably became even better workers as a result too. Some of that would be better fundamental skills over time and better performance skills too, but there's no doubt that they got better at different styles and without stats to reflecft that you make people more generic. Which is generally not good. Using your own "Styles" option... how would people grow into those styles? The idea isn't a bad one but with the stats you've put together there is no obvious system you can use that would give them a way to learn that and if things that important are going to be random or semi random then your system would have immediate issues.

 

Similary, different styles work together in different ways already in TEW. Put two brawlers together and you will get a better match than if you put a brawler and a flyer of the same skills levels assuming all other factors are the same. Better yet if you can put them into a Wild Brawl style match as it suits both of their styles perfectly. Doing things your way removes a bunch of nuances and ways for a player to try to get more out of a worker by finding the right opponents for them.

 

The point being.... while there could be a market for what you're talking about, it doesn't sound like a viable game to me based on what you're presented. Obviously you're not pitching a game and I only have incomplete information on what you'd think it would look like overall, but it sounds like a game that would be a very shallow, short term experience.

 

----------------------

 

As for the original point about bumping and selling..... it's been said already and those are covered by basics and selling. Basics is all about the footwork, bump taking and generally making whatever is happening look smooth. Selling covers the ability to make anything selling related look good and appropriate..... which includes no selling, Dolph Ziggler taking a Goldberg spear, your fiery puro comebacks, Bret Hart selling an injury for weeks, RVD impact selling, Samoa Joe badass style selling... as long as it is being used to enhance the performance of the action and is a deliberate way to get the crowd into the match, it's good. If it detracts from the match, isn't deliberate, or if a worker goes against what they've been doing in a match already or something against their character... it's bad.

 

Undertaker's selling is generally under-rated.... the guy always sells appropriately for a huge bad ass like himself and uses it to enhance his matches. Ziggler is a smaller guy and his awesome selling, with it's near infinite variations for everyone, is suitable for him too. HBK was a king of selling too. Whereas most guys these days sell the same way for everyone no matter what and it doesn't ever seem to add a lot to their matches because a lot of the guys from the WWE Performance Centre (for example) sell the same way for almost everyone. Bray Wyatt/The Fiend sells pretty well as a general rule too... but the booking on that character is bad and inconsistent which has made the selling look terrible now, so it would feel strange to give him a high score there now.

 

I'm rambling a bit, but I hope my point is coming across.

[TeemuFoundation]

Yeah, I have my own way of enjoying and experiencing TEW, which probably differs from how a lot of people play. That's why I made an effort to make sure I'm not undermining anyone's views. I have gathered programming experience these past five years, though, and do have a passing interest in making a game like this one day maybe. Not a competitor, but a different style of game. More of a fantasy booker, I guess.

 

And with everything being said, I very much enjoy the TEW games the way they are, and am excitedly looking forward to 2020.

[Derek B]

You are definitely one of the more unique players. With wrestling on a general upswing in the real world thanks to the success of AEW, NXT and NJPW alongside WWE's continued existence there is definitely a growing market for wrestling games. A lighter experience might be able to capture some of that by being more accessible. Not sure anything can be as good as TEW though, but I'm OBVIOUSLY biased since I'm on the dev team and have such a hand in shaping the games.

[LoganRodzen]

Before saying anything, I want to say that this is just my opinion, I don't want to undermine other people's views and preferences. Debates on GDS rarely go well, so I wanted to make this clear.

 

But I very much disagree that if you simplified the worker stats, TEW would be reduced to something like a 2K WWE game. First off, TEW is much more than just the worker stats. There's an entire game outside of that. And that alone makes it more deep and immersive than the 2K WWE games. I actually haven't played one since, idk, 2006 or something, but I have the general idea.

 

To me, the in ring work of a worker in a TEW game can be simplified to the following:

 

Athleticism: The actual physical ability to execute.

Psychology: The understanding of what, when, and why to execute. The mental part of wrestling. This includes telling a story, selling, everything that has to do with knowlededge of how to pull off an engaging professional wrestling match.

 

And perhaps experience could be its own thing, as well, even though it could also be lumped in with psychology. But one could argue that raw experience is something more than just that. Also, stamina I could see being its own thing. In general, more emphasis on the athletic capabilities would be better than the arbitrary "brawling", "submissions", etc.

 

I just personally have never seen much value in "brawling", "submissions", etc. because they just don't really reflect in the gameplay much. A worker uses his best top rop row strats, right? I don't see a reason to specify which stats he uses; is he brawling, being technical, or high flying, since of course a wrestler wrestles his or her style. That's every wrestler ever. No brawler all of a sudden decides to have an aerial match. People do what they're good at.

 

And this could be handled with "style". A wrestler could be a brawler, a technician, high flyer, all rounder, etc. Styles could even be more versatile, honestly. I think that's where the complexity could come into play.

 

Say, you have someone like a Bret Hart. You could just tick boxes of all the styles he can do. Bret Hart could do technical, and he could also brawl. Those were two main styles he could do.

 

What does it really matter whether his brawling is 80 or 84? Or whether his submissions are 97 or 100?

 

This just makes mod making much more tedious, and it forces real world mod makers to have more guess work and estimates because no one will ever accurately nail Bret Hart's ability to brawl. Is it 87 or 88?

 

So the stats will never be accurate anyway, so why even bother? That's my opinion.

 

Imagine how much bigger the mod community would be if we didn't have to spend all the time setting a million sliders to estimated, sometimes even random, values when creating workers. And a bigger mod community would mean more real world mods, and a bigger player base, too.

 

I think the new attributes will do a great job in making workers unique anyway, which would furhter allow the worker stats to be simplified. Especially if it's going to incldue stuff like "workes well with big workers" which will have an effect on the match rating, and will be a far more intuitive way to "craft" certain types of workers in a realistic manner.

 

As opposed to fiddling with the 0-100 sliders.

 

This is just my opinion, though. I never expect this to happen. And I like the games anyway, so this isn't a rant or anything. Just a thought.

 

Sorry to sound brash, but I'm someone who is entirely opposed to something like this. Growing workers and seeing the fruits of my labor are an important aspect of this game for me. It isn't so much if Bret Hart is a 97 or a 100 in submissions but if Bret is a 98, what is Sting? Does he get to be great at submissions because he did a mirrored Sharpshooter? Or someone like Sandman? I think lumping skills together is a really bad way to get people invested in the workers they are pushing.

 

For someone like me, who doesn't play a lot of big companies, overness means nothing to me. Seeing workers progress and stats go from a 10 to a 65 means more than I can describe. That's what this game is for me down to its core. It isn't about putting brawler vs brawler or good psychology vs good psychology. Its finding random pairs who can bring out the best in each other. That random chemistry between workers that you never expected and you can't ignore. The massive stat jumps because someone struck gold.

 

Without the stats behind these guys, I don't see myself wanting to book anything. Nothing will differentiate them. The stats that workers have also tie heavily into the match types that you book.

[TeemuFoundation]

Whey would be differentiated by things like personality traits and attributes. Things like attributes have unlimited potential.

[Derek B]

Attributes and the like are great. TEW2020 is going to make people very happy I think, the way workers can be put together to differentiate themselves from each other is great. Seeing the data so far there are some great combinations that have been put together and I can't wait to get to work modding to make the most out of everyone in the CV97 too. So many stats, so many attributes, so many unique workers and reasons for them to exist.

[TeemuFoundation]

Attributes are definitely one of my most looked forward to features. Can't wait to mod and craft workers.

And I think it's gonna give workers personality, etc.