Public Beta Reaction Thread

[Von Dozier]

Yeah, I'm on Beta 19. AI booking in general has improved in many ways. Yet the repetitveness and randomess is a bit concerning. It's not uncommon at all for Micarders to beat Main Eventers or for Main Eventers to go on unrealistically long losing streaks

 

What's the booking skill rating of these bookers?

[Clark K]

What's the booking skill rating of these bookers?

 

It ranges. But yeah, it is worse for poorer bookers. I gave Cody 90 Booking Skill so AEW wasn't quite as repetitve. But i was still seeing the same 2 or 3 match ups main eventing every card and still quite a bit of repetition in terms of matchups. Also, even for good bookers, it seems they choose who to push at random. Im seeing Moxley, with high SQ and pop, getting jobbed out. While the Dark Order, with their highest SQ being 55, have 25 wins and 1 loss

[SeanMc99]

Crowd burned out problem

 

another problem with the game (what a shock), no matter if i put "calm the crowd" matches i still get penalised for "having a burned out crowd" i even did two and still got penalised.

[tryker2710]

Isnt crowd burnout one of those "once it happens it happens" things? I always thought the point was to not let them get to the stage where they burnt out, but I didn't use perfect show theory after my first week with 2016 so if you could un-burn a crowd in 2016 then I guess thats a change but not necessarily a bad one imo

[PGHJuice]

I think I’m getting hang of the mechanics and how booking works. My last three SWF shows, (2 TVS and a PPV) have all scored an 86 rating or better.

 

Only problem I’m having is that I can’t seem to keep any major stars. At one point I had 5. (Golden, Remo, Scythe, Des Davids and Valiant)

 

I am now down to 1. Golden. If I can figure out how to keep guys at a major star level we’ll be in much better shape because right now we’re losing attendance for not having enough stars.

 

Other than that, booking has become routine as it was in 2016 for me. I’m having genuine fun here.

 

Now if we could only get a confirmation of that release date so I didn’t have to limit myself to booking 2 shows a day

[SeanMc99]

Isnt crowd burnout one of those "once it happens it happens" things? I always thought the point was to not let them get to the stage where they burnt out, but I didn't use perfect show theory after my first week with 2016 so if you could un-burn a crowd in 2016 then I guess thats a change but not necessarily a bad one imo

 

it said the crowd were burned out after the third segment in 90 minute show.

[PGHJuice]

it said the crowd were burned out after the third segment in 90 minute show.

 

Were your two opening segments high rated, fast paced action?

[SeanMc99]

Were your two opening segments high rated, fast paced action?

 

it was impact, a knockouts tag match and a interview so nope

[PGHJuice]

it was impact, a knockouts tag match and a interview so nope

 

Hmmm. What did they score and what lengths? Just trying to get all the factors in here. Not discrediting your worries at all

[SeanMc99]

Hmmm. What did they score and what lengths? Just trying to get all the factors in here. Not discrediting your worries at all

 

53 & 59 i think, around that anyways

[Zeel1]

I've been gathering my thoughts on something for a little while... apologies if this ends up being an overly-long post.

 

We've seen that some features from past games are missing in this one, and that can be frustrating for those that really appreciated them before. Being able to view workers from the angle screen, outright turning off regens without any work-arounds, many of the features specific to the developmental system ect. I won't count fully customizable products since that was a choice, one we were told about way in advance and I personally think that once enough new products have been added we'll see that it's got the potential to be a much stronger system.

 

But there's plenty of examples, some bigger than others. Popular features and little conveniences from before that are missing now. And I'm being very specific with my wording there, I say 'missing' instead of 'removed' because I feel like that's more accurate. They weren't taken out so much as they haven't been added in yet. And I think this is something that is perhaps being misunderstood about this game, a detail that maybe hasn't become common knowledge yet.

 

Something that I think we should be more mindful of is that this iteration of TEW 2020 is not, well, an iteration. All of the most recent games in this series were written on top of one another, taking the completed product of previous years and making additions and improvements to it until it was a big enough upgrade to justify another release. This strategy really worked out superbly for quite a while. When you play TEW 2016 it feels like a really strong and polished game because, in a way, it's a game that was developed over the span of a decade. You can sorta see that in it.

 

With this year's version though that was not the case. TEW 2020 was rewritten from the ground up rather than iterating in the same way as all the others. We were told about this from the announcement of the game, but I don't think it really dawned on us exactly how big of a deal that was. 2020 appears to have a lot more growing pains than previous entries and when you consider this fact, it's not really hard to see why.

 

I'm not going to tell you that it was a mistake to rework the game this way, I think it was the right move for the future of the series and is ultimately a major overhaul that was probably needed. We have a lot of major new features now, stuff like playing as dev companies, the attribute system, on-the-fly booking, the revamped push system... all stuff that I consider awesome additions and necessary steps forward for the series. And all stuff that probably was going to be either impossible or prohibitively difficult to do if you were simply tweaking what was already there in 2016.

 

Plus, even though the system was definitely a success in terms of cranking out high quality and polished games, the fact that every game was iterated on in this way was something that was kinda noticeable as a long-time fan. You could always sorta tell that the games started from the same point. In 2020 that's entirely gone, it very much feels like a brand new game.

 

It's definitely got it's pros. But we've also seen that it absolutely came with some cons and we probably should've expected that. TEW is a series with hundreds upon hundreds of features and ease-of-life quirks and design choices, and in recreating it some things didn't make it in, atleast not yet.

 

Remember, all that stuff has to be added back in. It's not just, still there from the previous build of the game like usual. I don't think it was a choice to remove these features. I believe they're either an oversight (hey you're dealing with a lot of stuff at this point it's not weird if things fall through the cracks!) or they couldn't be implemented in time for the game's release and they weren't considered major enough to be worth a delay. Either of these would pretty much be fair I think.

 

I've taken a look back at past announcements and dev journals and it seems that TEW has been building from the previous game for every installment since ATLEAST 2008. And considering there was a TEW 2007 a year before, I'm guessing that was actually the last one that was totally rewritten from the ground up. And if that's true, like, geeze. Think about how much less there was to this series back then! Writing those games had to have been way simpler, there was a lot less to test.

 

The old way of doing things meant no features ever really had to be removed, stuff just kept being added. That's why it ended up becoming such a juggernaut of a simulator in the first place. Suddenly in 2020, the task was to recreate all of that from scratch. He called this his biggest, most ambitious project to date and I think that has to be true. So of course it's not easy in these first few weeks and probably won't be among the next couple of months of release either.

 

There's also the fact that those games were the result of years of combined testing. Every bit of feedback and patch given to TEW 2007 made it's way into TEW 2008 which made it's way into TEW 2010 and so on. Any mistake the past game had ended up making the next one better. It's like we've been in the process of an infinite open beta.

 

Look at how much 2020 has been tweaked and fixed in the span of a couple of weeks. Now imagine that over the course of a decade and you basically have what 2016 was. In order to move forward, all that testing had to be thrown out as well. And mind you they're doing that ahead of a game that has MORE features than anything before it, so it's really only natural it'd be buggy at first.

 

None of this is to say that anyone's opinions are invalid or shouldn't be shared, far from it. Really it's the whole point of an open beta to have these critiques in the first place, that stuff can be invaluable. They want to know the stuff you'd like to see changed. But I do think this would be a good bit of context to keep in mind when you talk about these things.

 

Comparing TEW 2020 in it's current state to the finished products of yesteryear might be a little bit unfair. They all had a privilege that this game did not have.

 

Myself I'm excited to see what 2020 ends up becoming though, and looking forward to where the series goes from here now that it'll have this huge new base to work off of. It's a bit of a grander foundation than '07, I'd say...

[Soft]

While I think Zeel1's post was very valid and actually helped me personally be a little less 'upset' if you want to call it that I still wanted to share my feelings about some issues I discovered playing the Beta. I apologize in advance if I repeat things other people have mentioned before but I didn't read the whole thread.

 

Being on board since the very early days, I've played every single iteration and I still fondly remember the very first TEW (which I can't find anywhere unfortunately; I guess it must be a rights issue) and the incredible step up it was from EWR. Just being able to play in Japan was such a game changer for me. But I digress..

 

First of all, I really think the game was released too early but obviously Adam also realized this. It's an ambitious project and while there are certain parts that might be just kind of new or different from TEW16 that just take some time to get used to, there are parts that make the game experience just less enjoyable for me.

 

1) Products

 

This is a big one for a lot of people, me included. I don't enjoy the confinements it presents me with and my go-to product from TEW16 is even after all the updates still not really possible or with some added things I really don't want to book. Having Eye Candy requirements in so many entertainment based products is just a nuisance and I really have not seen any product in real life except for parts of ECW and obviously WWF Attitude where that is actually a thing. I would love a comeback of the open system but I guess it's not happening.

 

2) User Interface

 

Why are there soo many buttons?! It's not even the initial issues encountered in terms of the color scheme and fonts but I wished there would be maybe an option to group some of the buttons it would be great.

 

3) I want to use my mouse roller!

 

I think it was fixed for a couple of different areas but one it hasn't thus far is scrolling through pictures! It is such a pain to click every picture individually.

 

4) Filters stay on

 

This really just might be something I have to get used to but up until now I'm not the biggest fan.

 

Those are just some random observations I've made thus far and I'm sure most if not all of them have been mentioned before. Cheers!

[Zeel1]

I like the filters staying on sometimes but it does occasionally take me off-guard a bit. I'd say maybe that's a feature that could use an On/Off toggle in the User Preferences. Can't have too many of those. Actually I wanna say the WMMA games had this toggle? I think it was called "Sticky Search" in that.

[awesomenessofme1]

Having Eye Candy requirements in so many entertainment based products is just a nuisance and I really have not seen any product in real life except for parts of ECW and obviously WWF Attitude where that is actually a thing.

 

I went through and only counted a few that required Eye Candy matches. Attitude Entertainment, Risque Adult (of course), and Stoner Entertainment. All ones where it would make sense. I did make a post in the tech support forum about how Eye Candy requirements still apply even if you don't have women's wrestling, but in general, I don't think this is as big of an issue as you're describing it here.

[franticloser]

53 & 59 i think, around that anyways

 

 

You said iMPACT, are you booking them in a block schedule? If so how many shows where you in by that point? Crowds can now get bored and restless if they sit through to much at one time.

[Remianen]

It's really tough man.... I'm not someone who wants to find things that bother me. I know games change & things improve. I don't like that I feel old or out of touch for not knowing how to move around the screens easily. I don't like thinking that I just don't get the new U.I & the removed/changed features are considered "great" by other people. I feel like I'm too stupid to get the design changes.

 

It has nothing to do with being 'old' or 'stupid'. It's simply your personal preferences at work. Change is hard, especially when that change is abrupt.

 

I've been playing games for 45 years (yes, we had Pong in my house when I was a toddler) and have had the opportunity to get involved in game development since 2001. I've seen games change drastically over time and I've been blessed (or cursed) to see 'how the sausage is made', so to speak. So I see things from both sides to some degree. Complete rewrites garner these types of reactions. When you're used to a game changing very little over its lifespan (as has been the case with TEW), seeing the game completely redone from the ground up is jarring. You basically have to relearn everything that you had committed to muscle memory. It used to take me 10 minutes (tops) to book a show in TEW16. I've just recently gotten it down below half an hour in TEW20. That's not a big deal to me. I have to relearn control schemes when Asian MMOs release in the West, so that's par for the course. But if you're a creature of habit and like uniformity in your game, I can definitely see how this could be distressing. Again, doesn't make you 'stupid' or 'old' or 'wrong', it's simply a preference (and we all have those).

 

The game isn't perfect, but I'd much rather be TEW20 than Mass Effect Andromeda or WWE 2k20 or Front Office Football or *insert Steam Direct game here*. At least I know TEW20 will be completed before Adam moves on to his next project (and even after he moves on. TEW16 was still getting patches while TEW20 was in development!).

[DeathZone2]

I think Rem hit the nail on the head for why I don't like TEW20, it takes me 3/4 minutes to book a show on TEW16. TEW20 takes a long time and that's where my dissatisfaction comes in.

[ShaunGBD]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="DeathZone2" data-cite="DeathZone2" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47578" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I think Rem hit the nail on the head for why I don't like TEW20, it takes me 3/4 minutes to book a show on TEW16. TEW20 takes a long time and that's where my dissatisfaction comes in.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> In what way does it take longer? I don't see a real difference</p>

[LloydCross]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ShaunGBD" data-cite="ShaunGBD" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47578" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>In what way does it take longer? I don't see a real difference</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Personally, after a few tries I'm finding it significantly faster. A few issues make it so I need to double check the card fairly thoroughly before submitting, but overall I'm really enjoying it.</p>

[Bonafide_Bluffa]

it took me 10-15 mins to book when i first started now i can book in 3-4 mins easy

[MainOffender]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ShaunGBD" data-cite="ShaunGBD" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47578" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>In what way does it take longer? I don't see a real difference</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I think some of this comes down to play style. For me, it's taking longer to book my shows because I like to book all my matches first and then add angles. This means I'm fiddling a lot with those arrows to move segments around. It's like a mini-game! Can I move this angle to the proper place in under a minute. </p><p> </p><p> Further, the angles the game starts with were haphazardly imported from 16 without any care for the new angle rules. So, I end up using free style angles, which are more time consuming. (This will be fixed now that there are some good angle packs coming out or I create my own, but I haven't wanted to expend the time doing that on a game I'm not sure I want to buy yet.)</p><p> </p><p> Finally, not being able to scroll through road agent notes with my mouse wheel slows me down. Fiddly stuff like double-clicking "Victor" resetting who I've selected from the drop-down. Basically, having to relearn screens in ways that aren't particularly intuitive. All that adds a lot of time to my booking.</p>

[Teh_Showtime]

<p>It’s a lot faster when you know the ins and outs of your company and don’t have to deal with not being able to access key information as easily as you could in 2016. If I’m not using TCW or QAW the process is significantly longer personally. Trying to remember who are the talented mic guys, teams, stables, etc are a lot less visible than before.</p><p> </p><p>

But when I’m in with a roster I’ve known for years I don’t have to spend time looking for anything and it’s mostly a breeze, besides following a match to click it up a 20 segment card.</p>

[Remianen]

It’s a lot faster when you know the ins and outs of your company and don’t have to deal with not being able to access key information as easily as you could in 2016. If I’m not using TCW or QAW the process is significantly longer personally. Trying to remember who are the talented mic guys, teams, stables, etc are a lot less visible that before.

 

But when I’m in with a roster I’ve known for years I don’t have to spend time looking for anything and it’s mostly a breeze, besides following a match to click it up a 20 segment card.

 

So much this. It's simply lack of familiarity with basic operations. Post-release, I'll get a groove worked out and I'll get back to being able to book shows in 5 minutes again.

[Matt_Black]

Um, what? All the workers stats are right there on the screen when you are picking who to put in a match.

[djthefunkchris]

Um, what? All the workers stats are right there on the screen when you are picking who to put in a match.

 

I think everything is going over your head. The more you know about the workers, the less you have to look at stats, the less time it takes to pick what your doing.

 

Don't know why you keep debating people on THEIR experience, it's only negatively going to impact them. Hey, if your goal is to ensure they won't get the game, then proceed by all means.