I Attempt to Explain Perception

[TeemuFoundation]

Aight.

 

So, I've seen a lot of people really worried and troubled over the lack of the old push feature, in favour of the new perception feature in TEW 2020.

 

And heckin' screw you, spell check, Imma spell it "favour" instead of "favor" if I want to! See, I'm old school like that. But what I'm not old school for is the old "push feature".

 

So, like. In the old games, let's use TEW 2016 here, what happened was, workers would have X popularity. And that X popularity would determine how the game viewed their spot in the company they worked for.

 

Yes, you could assign an arbitrary "push" for them, but it had no effect on their actual popularity; if you wanted to get the best results, you'd push the guy with 100% popularity as main eventer, and the guy with 0% popularity as an enhancement talent.

 

And stuff in-between.

 

It made no sense to do anything except use the auto push feature to avoid getting complaints from people unhappy with their push. The funny thing about that was, you could still treat the guy you just gave the "main event" push as an opener. The workers in 2016 are so dumb, they will never know the difference. They were just happy with the label of main eventer.

 

What I mean is, you could push a guy as a main eventer, but have him open every show for all eternity, never actually being involved in any top programs in the company. And he was happy.

 

So what did the "push" feature really mean, in the end? It was all super arbitrary.

 

The actual push of a worker is how you treat them on the card. This is done by simply booking. You give a guy a main event push by featuring him in main event programs. You give a guy a midcard push by featuring him in midcard programs. Guys can also jump back and forth between main event and midcard. It happens in real life all the time since there's only room for one program at the very top at a time.

 

There is simply no need for the added busywork of continuously clicking autobooker to make sure everyone on the roster is properly tricked into believing they're in the spot they believe they deserve. Effectively.

 

Enter perception.

 

The push feature is now removed entirely. You are simply given the information of how the fans view a worker in terms of their current popularity and momentum in comparison to the company's popularity.

 

What you actually proceed to do with them is still up to you. Just like it was in TEW 2016, and just like it's been in every iteration of the EW series ever up to this point. I've seen a lot of people seemingly have the misunderstanding that perception somehow forces you to agree with the fans. Like, if someone is perceived a Major Star, it means you absolutely have to push him as the big main eventer of your company.

 

No, no, no. That's not it at all. You are simply given the information of how the fans view the worker. The rest is up to you, as I said. You can have Bret Hart perceived as the major star in your company, but no game mechanic is stopping you from pushing Mabel as your main event attraction because "GODDAMNIT, PAL, LOOK AT HIM, HE'S HUGE! LIKE A GIANT CHOCOLATE MASTODON!"

 

Of course, you get the best results, game-wise, if you push your Major Stars on top. But this was the case in 2016, as well. It hasn't changed at all. Really, in my opinion, all that has changed from 2016 is the removal of the unnecessary busywork of assigning arbitrary pushes to people that never really meant anything to begin with since you could place people wherever you wanted on the card anyway, regardless of their push.

 

In TEW 2016, I could keep Hulk Hogan in 1990 happy forever by giving him a main event push and having him work a neverending opening match program with Iron Mike Sharp for the rest of his career. He would never complain about anything for as long as he worked for me.

 

I can still do this in 2020, of course. But my point is that it's not like the old push system in 2016 necessarily had anything to do with how you actually pushed your workers. Because, again, the actual push is how place your people on the cards. That's what it means.

 

Ric Flair was not a main eventer in the NWA because he was assigned a "main event" push on a spreadsheet; he was a main eventer because he worked on top with top guys.

 

I hope I didn't come off as rude or condescending. I just feel a lot of people are misunderstanding the feature, and seeing limitations that aren't there.

[ShaunGBD]

Good points made

[Tomato Can]

Definitely helpful!! Thank you!

[smw88]

"GODDAMNIT, PAL, LOOK AT HIM, HE'S HUGE! LIKE A GIANT CHOCOLATE MASTODON!"

 

Ha ha ha, this made me chuckle probably more than it should, nice explanation imo

[Taker4455]

What I'd like to understand is if the perception is based on short or long term momentum.

[TeemuFoundation]

What I'd like to understand is if the perception is based on short or long term momentum.

Long-term momentum is always the momentum used in any calculations that take into account a worker's momentum. The only job of short-term momentum is to determine long-term momentum.

[Totalwarfare2020]

A few things about the old push system. Auto push was dumb too. I checked my people every show. If I did auto push my ref would probably end up a authority figure. My annoucer would end up a colour. I have seen sometimes the old system adjust people who were clearly a main eventer. If you click the recommend push option. I don't know if it was true in 2016. I do remember in old games. A wrong push can hurt a popularity growth on a worker.

 

I'm fine with there being a new system as long as I can still get my people over. Of course I'm sure workers will horrible star quality will never get over.

[TeemuFoundation]

A few things about the old push system. Auto push was dumb too. I checked my people every show. If I did auto push my ref would probably end up a authority figure. My annoucer would end up a colour. I have seen sometimes the old system adjust people who were clearly a main eventer. If you click the recommend push option. I don't know if it was true in 2016. I do remember in old games. A wrong push can hurt a popularity growth on a worker.

 

I'm fine with there being a new system as long as I can still get my people over. Of course I'm sure workers will horrible star quality will never get over.

Those autopush errors you got won't occur in 2016 if the mod is good, though. To be fair. That's an issue with the mod/worker data.

[Poputt]

I get the idea. I think the problem people are having is that the old push system had a better established ceiling. By that I mean players would realize that Main Event and Upper Midcarders were the only people who would do well in a Main Event match (usually blah blah et cetera). Now it's less obvious and packaged with more factors like how over they are and stuff. Scotty 2 Hotty was a "star" in 2000 but there's no way in hell a sane booker would put him in the Main Event.

[The Nickman]

This is a really good post, and I really like the new feature. I feel like this is on par with when the momentum system was changed from TEW2010 to 2013. People didn’t like it at first, but once we all got used to it, not many of us wanted to go back.

 

I’m certain this will play out the same. I, for one, hate having to hit autopush every damn show.

[Poputt]

I, for one, hate having to hit autopush every damn show.

 

Amen to that.

[TeemuFoundation]

I get the idea. I think the problem people are having is that the old push system had a better established ceiling. By that I mean players would realize that Main Event and Upper Midcarders were the only people who would do well in a Main Event match (usually blah blah et cetera). Now it's less obvious and packaged with more factors like how over they are and stuff. Scotty 2 Hotty was a "star" in 2000 but there's no way in hell a sane booker would put him in the Main Event.

Yea, that's a fair point. But I don't think it's a problem with the perception feature, per se. It's part of a bigger problem in the TEW series, which is that there aren't enough nuances to separate "popularity" from "overness" or "drawing power". These get mixed a ton in TEW because there's no clear separation made. Scotty obviously got massive pops because his feel good gimmick was fun and entertaining. But I doubt Scotty had drawn as the top dog. Another, less obvious, example is Ultimate Warrior in 1990. His pops and popularity were enough to fool the WWF front office, but for whatever reason, he just wasn't that guy. Very popular. Huge pops. But he was just not the guy to pull the wagon. Whatever the reason may be. The popularity in TEW is a bit too one-dimensional to really create this dilemma.

[danyp92]

Yea, that's a fair point. But I don't think it's a problem with the perception feature, per se. It's part of a bigger problem in the TEW series, which is that there aren't enough nuances to separate "popularity" from "overness" or "drawing power". These get mixed a ton in TEW because there's no clear separation made. Scotty obviously got massive pops because his feel good gimmick was fun and entertaining. But I doubt Scotty had drawn as the top dog. Another, less obvious, example is Ultimate Warrior in 1990. His pops and popularity were enough to fool the WWF front office, but for whatever reason, he just wasn't that guy. Very popular. Huge pops. But he was just not the guy to pull the wagon. Whatever the reason may be. The popularity in TEW is a bit too one-dimensional to really create this dilemma.

I doubt that a worker with good gimmick will get to Star or Major Star level unless you book him strongly. At the end, like always, the key is popularity. Only now it's confronted with your company popularity and not the rest of the roster.

 

I'm not gonna say that TEW is perfect, but the Warrior things can't be simulated by him not producing good ratings for whatever reason?

[TeemuFoundation]

I doubt that a worker with good gimmick will get to Star or Major Star level unless you book him strongly. At the end, like always, the key is popularity. Only now it's confronted with your company popularity and not the rest of the roster.

 

I'm not gonna say that TEW is perfect, but the Warrior things can't be simulated by him not producing good ratings for whatever reason?

Warrior was, on the surface level, popular enough to be top main eventer in the WWF at the time. If you are to think of the WWF at the time like a TEW game, and WWF is and was obviously pop over performance. Of course, you can't because one is real life and the other is a video game, but still. Real life just has more nuances than a game could ever perfectly replicate. I feel like this steers the convo offtopic, though.

[Poputt]

Like I said I understand all that, but when it came time to book a card, people sorted the pushes. Maybe not every match, but those icons got a lot of clicks. "*clicks autopush* Oh Matt Jackson is Upper Midcard in the WWE now? Well I guess I can put him in the Main Event." You can look at screencaps and feel them doing it, and watch YouTube videos and see them do it. I think a better way to ease people into this would be to put the worker's popularity in your company's region on their profile, and change that to the region you're running the show in during the PM booking mode. That way the players still have that "smash glass in case of filler match" option, even if it isn't perfect.

[TeemuFoundation]

Like I said I understand all that, but when it came time to book a card, people sorted the pushes. Maybe not every match, but those icons got a lot of clicks. "*clicks autopush* Oh Matt Jackson is Upper Midcard in the WWE now? Well I guess I can put him in the Main Event." You can look at screencaps and feel them doing it, and watch YouTube videos and see them do it. I think a better way to ease people into this would be to put the worker's popularity in your company's region on their profile, and change that to the region you're running the show in during the PM booking mode. That way the players still have that "smash glass in case of filler match" option, even if it isn't perfect.

Yea, I actually haven't booked a single show yet in TEW 2020, and I'm waiting to see if a few specific changes happen before I decide to swap 2016 for 2020, so I have no idea how booking works and how accessible certain stuff is. Sorting by pop and momentum would obviously be nice if it's currently included in the game.

[shawn michaels]

Very good explanation Teemu. And I would also add that before, you could game the system by pushing someone as ME and give them more screen time. This was gamey and at the end of the day if you placed a low pop worker in ME matches or segments, they would still tank, regardless of push because they were nobodies. As it should.

 

The new system allows you to see out of the bat who is in position to be where, removes unnecessary clicks and stresses of having to deal with a non existing fictional auto-push system that had 0 benefits and only added work and headaches, as well as stopping the gamey pushes that made no sense.

 

Perception is indeed one of the great new additions of this game. I would only add ability to sort by perception/momentum/pop when booking or searching. (Can't remember if it is searchable outside of booking)

[ThePastor]

<p>This is just inaccurate, the push system wasn’t arbitrary, it was completely core to the gameplay of TEW2016.</p><p> </p><p>

It determined the match length guys could wrestle without getting dinged for overuse, it determined the amount of angles a guy could be featured in without being dinged for overuse.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

For example, when Bray Wyatt was introduced in real life, he often had several vignettes and a lengthy promo and on top of it worked in near main event level matches while he was basically unknown. This made it so he got over way quicker.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

The perception system is actually just unrealistic. It takes a flat number(the workers area popularity) and determines entirely whether or not how you can use that worker based on nothing but his popularity. Ignore stats, ignore star quality. Just popularity is the only thing that matters now along with some other minor stuff like momentum.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

I also believe the new perception system will cause a lot of issues booking historical mods where guys often came in as “attractions” despite not inherently being popular in the area.</p>

[TeemuFoundation]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ThePastor" data-cite="ThePastor" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47956" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>This is just inaccurate, the push system wasn’t arbitrary, it was completely core to the gameplay of TEW2016.<p> </p><p> It determined the match length guys could wrestle without getting dinged for overuse, it determined the amount of angles a guy could be featured in without being dinged for overuse.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> For example, when Bray Wyatt was introduced in real life, he often had several vignettes and a lengthy promo and on top of it worked in near main event level matches while he was basically unknown. This made it so he got over way quicker.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> The perception system is actually just unrealistic. It takes a flat number(the workers area popularity) and determines entirely whether or not how you can use that worker based on nothing but his popularity. Ignore stats, ignore star quality. Just popularity is the only thing that matters now along with some other minor stuff like momentum.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> I also believe the new perception system will cause a lot of issues booking historical mods where guys often came in as “attractions” despite not inherently being popular in the area.</p></div></blockquote><p> How can a worker with no star quality be popular, though? And what I meant by arbitrary was, there was no drawback in taking, let's say, an Opener, and giving him a Main Event push for one night on TV because you want him to face your champion in a one-off. You give him the main event push to eliminate the overuse penalty. You'd receive no punishment for this. You'd just autopush him back to his regular spot after the show was over.</p>

[Bigpapa42]

<p>Great explanation, Teemu. And it is indeed a great new feature. </p><p> </p><p>

I get why people miss pushes as it was a neat way to organize your roster. The problem I always had with it was that it locked the AI into a rigid structure. Because push wasn't based on actual popularity - it was based on a ratio. If you crafted a horribly structured roster with 30 workers at 80 popularity and 5 workers at 60 popularity, you didn't get 30 main eventers and 5 midcarders. You still go the full gamut. When modding, this could cause problems with certain companies. Looking at you, WWE. Because in almost any time period under Vince McMahon, the WWE has run a large roster. And in certain periods, they have a lot of pretty popular workers. But in others, they haven't. But having a big roster meant that a bunch of people who realistically should have been used as upper mids or even mids would auto-push to ME, and the AI wouldn't always recognize that headlining Kane, Billy Gunn, or the Miz as your top star wasn't ideal when there were much better candidates already on the roster, at least in popularity terms. When the AI did that, it would mean they were headlining a worker (or several) who didn't have the popularity required to get the main event grades necessary to maintain popularity. And the WWE would drop in size. Modern WWE having 2 A shows only compounded it, because that was double the opportunity to put on shows that lose the company popularity. It didn't happen every time, obviously, but as someone who has worked on and tested mods, it happened frequently enough and it was just a drawback of the rigid structure of pushes.</p>

[ThePastor]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="TeemuFoundation" data-cite="TeemuFoundation" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47956" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>How can a worker with no star quality be popular, though? And what I meant by arbitrary was, there was no drawback in taking, let's say, an Opener, and giving him a Main Event push for one night on TV because you want him to face your champion in a one-off. You give him the main event push to eliminate the overuse penalty. You'd receive no punishment for this. You'd just autopush him back to his regular spot after the show was over.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> Yes this is literally how wrestling is. This is how the game should be.</p><p> </p><p> The issues with the push system was that the workers were aware of it(which made no sense) and that it gave completely arbitrary penalties beyond what actually occurred in the ring and on the show.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> The solution of course was simply to just remove the arbitrary penalties, not rework the entire system so organizing your roster is a confusing directionless mess.</p>

[TeemuFoundation]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ThePastor" data-cite="ThePastor" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47956" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Yes this is literally how wrestling is. This is how the game should be.<p> </p><p> The issues with the push system was that the workers were aware of it(which made no sense) and that it gave completely arbitrary penalties beyond what actually occurred in the ring and on the show.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> The solution of course was simply to just remove the arbitrary penalties, not rework the entire system so organizing your roster is a confusing directionless mess.</p></div></blockquote><p> Yea, but you can do it now, though? You can still put TAKA in a WWF title match with Triple H. You just don't have to back and forth assigning and re-assigning pushes to do it. You can just - do it.</p>

[ThePastor]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="TeemuFoundation" data-cite="TeemuFoundation" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47956" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Yea, but you can do it now, though? You can still put TAKA in a WWF title match with Triple H. You just don't have to back and forth assigning and re-assigning pushes to do it. You can just - do it.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p> You get a crazy amount of penalties for everything now.</p><p> </p><p> I booked my first show in India and I think I had about 7 overuse penalties between all my workers because none of the Indian workers start with popularity and if I used them in two segments it automatically created a penalty.</p><p> </p><p> For example </p><p> </p><p> Promo</p><p> Match</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> “worker is very overused”</p>

[TeemuFoundation]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="ThePastor" data-cite="ThePastor" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="47956" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>You get a crazy amount of penalties for everything now.<p> </p><p> I booked my first show in India and I think I had about 7 overuse penalties between all my workers because none of the Indian workers start with popularity and if I used them in two segments it automatically created a penalty.</p><p> </p><p> For example </p><p> </p><p> Promo</p><p> Match</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> “worker is very overused”</p></div></blockquote><p> Okay. I haven't really dove into booking that much in 2020 yet, just messed with the editor. I'm waiting to see if a few things change in 2020 to see if I make the change from 2016 to 2020. But that sounds like it's a problem elsewhere in the game, not with the perception feature itself. I get what you're saying, though.</p>

[ThePastor]

<p>It was always going to be a problem, the way it’s handled never made any sense.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

Wrestling is not that rigid.</p><p> </p><p>

The Undertaker debut with almost no popularity nationally in a big 5 on 5 Survivor Series match with a lot of the top guys in the company.</p><p> </p><p>

No “worker is overused” nonsense and big penalties to show grade.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>

If anything using an unpopular worker will receive largely reduced grades unless he has the stats to back it up, so what is the need for arbitrary penalties ?</p>