Your Weaknesses/Bias/Shortcomings/Tropes As a Booker

[DavGen]

- Unlike some of you, I like to keep my roster smaller. I have 26 workers in my MAW save and I don't often renew the roster. Sometime I replace a guy leaving, sometime not. But it happens my roster had a match against everyone and I stuck

 

- I have big issues when it comes to rotate my roster. I mean a main eventer is stick to main event while the jobbers are really ice cold. My youngsters, when ready, have to win every match for a year to be competitive to the midcard or upper. With a company designed to create stars for the future, it's a bit odd ...

 

- I don't often turn my workers. In fact, I had 2 turns in 3.5 years. Sometimes I need it when I have 5 main eventer but 4 of them is face. And also, I have difficulties to balance my roster, like I said I can end to have my faces on the sky of main event and my heels only upper midcard if lucky (or vice versa)

 

- Not sure if it's a weakness, but I stick to my game too. Even if I know a reboot of the game with MAW would be so awesome with the things I learned in this game. I'm not really interrested with another company and even if this one begins to looking stale, I "have to" continue it because I created something and I try to evolve with my character.

[Hashasheen]

I'm not really all that open to intergender wrestling or mixed gender promoting. I feel like a women's place is best when she's at the top of her own promotion and the undoubted top star. I think this comes from playing older editions of USPW where your best prospects were Alicia Strong and Belle Bryden and it always just made me want to ditch the guys and make USPW stand out like a mix of GLOW and WOW and WCW.

 

I also am not that crazy about openweight wrestling or pushing junior heavyweight wrestlers. I'm not so far off the spectrum that it's Big Heavyweight or larger for me, but if you're lightweight or smaller then you're probably not going to have a very successful career with me outside of the tag ranks with a bigger guy.

 

I also don't like pinfall finishes in wrestling. I know that's basically the most classic and integral parts of wrestling, but I've increasingly become enamored with better utilizing submissions, knockouts, stoppages and draws over the pinfall. I think it's partially due to me loathing the school boy flash finish and how overused it feels, because the other finishes I mentioned can be worked to be dirty finishes (brass knuckles, getting a guy off the ropes, etc...) but they need a lot more work to be dirty.

[merrykieran2]

I'm not really all that open to intergender wrestling or mixed gender promoting. I feel like a women's place is best when she's at the top of her own promotion and the undoubted top star. I think this comes from playing older editions of USPW where your best prospects were Alicia Strong and Belle Bryden and it always just made me want to ditch the guys and make USPW stand out like a mix of GLOW and WOW and WCW.

 

See I'm the complete opposite of this where I really just hate having a women's division and prefer to have them integrated in and wrestling with the rest of the company. It makes it feel less important to me if you have this group that can't interact with most of your roster and I feel it can stunt their growth. Especially if those women's wrestlers are on the same level as the mens then it feels like I'm just denying people of these great crossover matches. That's just my opinion on intergender though

[Dave E Mac]

My top storyline and feud is FIRE. I put so much effort in. I'll have twists and turns planned. Its ace.

 

Below that nothing! I struggle to get as much going on below my main feud. I then what have anyone built up to slot into a main event feud once my ace story line is over.

[merrykieran2]

Another one that I would add here is that I could go months without any of my 4 titles changing hands (events twice a month) and then have multiple title changes all within the same month or two. I try to avoid it but sometimes plans just align that way

[kdcastles]

See I'm the complete opposite of this where I really just hate having a women's division and prefer to have them integrated in and wrestling with the rest of the company. It makes it feel less important to me if you have this group that can't interact with most of your roster and I feel it can stunt their growth. Especially if those women's wrestlers are on the same level as the mens then it feels like I'm just denying people of these great crossover matches. That's just my opinion on intergender though

 

I know it's all opinion, but my wife was beaten by a boyfriend before me, and I can't enjoy male on female violence, even when it's text-based. So I always have a women's division, if I have women wrestling in my company.

[d12345]

Let's open the show with an 8-10 minute talking segment. At this point I really don't know what Wolf Hawkins and Aaron Andrews / Rocky Golden and Scythe say to each other.

 

This +10000...

 

At this point for me, Wolf is basically 2004 Triple H with his long show opening monologues...

[Ben Nook]

Not racist but I have a really hard time booking Japanese wrestlers as anything but midcard filler.

 

 

I know it’s a mostly subverted trope now that modern New Japan has people like Okada who took heavy influence from Western TV, but I always see most Japanese as very same-y.

 

Which to be fair I also see this in modern NXT and most indies.

 

But I’m playing a big mega company with a lucha influence now and have Kairi Sane and Io Shirai and neither are really making much headway, Io even has insane stats and I still just book her a jobber to talents like Tessa Blanchard and Ronda Rousey.

 

 

There’s also a ton of talents in STARDOM I just won sign despite having incredible stats.

 

I’m really trying to think of an angle for Io because I don’t want to waste her, I have her sister in development and I’m thinking about doing an angle where Mio attacks Io and they do a family feud with Mio being the jealous sister with the insecurity complex. But I can’t do it for ages because Mio have no brawling or aerial and my fans don’t want to see her yet.

 

Oh well.

[Ben Nook]

I tend to get really repetitive with touring cards. I have a setup that works as far as letting the main event and other big matches shine and I stick to it.

 

I tend to book really slow on putting people over guys above them unless they are hires that are in the middle of a push. If I have a #1 and a #2 guy, the second guy will rarely see wins over the number one guy. Worse for 3 on down. My top guys are super protected.

 

My title reigns can get really long. I'm talking years.

 

I will sometimes abandon guys I pushed when they reach their "peak" and not have them do anything beyond getting wins over guys under them. Forever. And yet I re-sign them jealously to huge contracts so SWF can't steal them.

 

 

 

I have this huge issue too. I often will just try to sneak in some losses on purpose on my top guys, maybe in a random tag match or something just so I don’t look at the end of the year match stats and see I booked them to some insane 62-1 or whatever.

 

I have to remind myself to make my top guys lose matches on occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

Also I always book a Junior Heavyweight division one all of my companies. I think the game world is too heavily populated with small men under 200 pounds and I find it too unrealistic to have them allow wrestle together.

 

 

On my current file my Junior Heavyweight division is about 20 wrestlers and my Heavyweight division is about 28.

[Pteroid]

Comedy. If you ain't funny, I'm gonna need a good reason to give you my money.

[Dead_Jester]

Like most I tend to overload my roster with talent to the point where I have a lot of guys sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing aside from the dark matches to keep them active.

 

A plus side to the bloated roster leads to having a big and diverse Tag Team division. Admittedly i'm a sucker for Tag Team wrestling so every game I start I always tend to build a deep Tag division.

 

I struggle with lengthy babyface Title runs as well and instead focus way too much on the face chasing the Title and have heel Champions rack up the lengthy reigns.

[tlove48man]

I always found myself waiting too long to pull the trigger on giving someone the championships, making reigns drag on at points.

 

I've also found that in fantasy mods, as someone else has stated, I am a sucker for good renders, if the render doesn't appeal to me, they usually don't get pushed, or if I like their render, I will up their stats to use them.

 

Another thing is I hate to book segments, most of the time matches and feuds are just "hey you beat me and i want my win back but i'll give you a title match grrr." though I do improve in that in my figure fed and my NOAH save that I had lost.

[CQI13]

Bruh.

 

Actually, I think you mean "Bro" as in...

 

"I'm going to tell you something right now that you will absolutely not agree with, but I've been a wrestling fan my whole life and I will live and die by this. It's hard enough, believe me, I write this EXPLETIVE DELETED, it is hard enough to get somebody over. You will never ever, ever, ever, ever see the Japanese wrestlers or the Mexican wrestlers over in American mainstream wrestling. I'm an American. If I'm watching wrestling here in America, I don't give a EXPLETIVE DELETED about a Japanese guy. I don't give a EXPLETIVE DELETED about a Mexican guy. I'm from America, and that's what I want to see."

 

As for main guys eating losses, do it on the pre shoe as an excuse to see if they work well together for a future program.

[Mokoa]

I like to save big title changes and gimmick matches to the season end PPV. Even a simple Steel Cage match must feel like a big deal to me.

[PhenomenalV1]

I often end up hotshotting a lot of titles that aren't my world championships. It got to the point where I had nearly 20 main tag title changes, 10 secondary tag title 12 tv championship changes, 8 secondary title changes, and 6 Jr heavyweight title changes in one year, all while I had a year long reign from the world champion.

 

The tag title hotshotting is also because I love the "feuding main eventers win the tag belts" trope a little too much...

[CQI13]

I often end up hotshotting a lot of titles that aren't my world championships. It got to the point where I had nearly 20 main tag title changes, 10 secondary tag title 12 tv championship changes, 8 secondary title changes, and 6 Jr heavyweight title changes in one year, all while I had a year long reign from the world champion.

 

The tag title hotshotting is also because I love the "feuding main eventers win the tag belts" trope a little too much...

 

That is not entirely out of line. If you have titles where there are a lot of changes, it is good to have a title that provides stability. Better that being the World Title than one of your other ones

[DirigoJoe]

I have a really hard time booking compelling tag team wrestling. It seems SO much easier to build a good singles feud, but with tag teams? It's messy... and usually none of the four people involved have high enough skills in entertainment to get a hot storyline.

[Ben Nook]

Actually, I think you mean "Bro" as in...

 

"I'm going to tell you something right now that you will absolutely not agree with, but I've been a wrestling fan my whole life and I will live and die by this. It's hard enough, believe me, I write this EXPLETIVE DELETED, it is hard enough to get somebody over. You will never ever, ever, ever, ever see the Japanese wrestlers or the Mexican wrestlers over in American mainstream wrestling. I'm an American. If I'm watching wrestling here in America, I don't give a EXPLETIVE DELETED about a Japanese guy. I don't give a EXPLETIVE DELETED about a Mexican guy. I'm from America, and that's what I want to see."

 

As for main guys eating losses, do it on the pre shoe as an excuse to see if they work well together for a future program.

 

 

 

 

Actually the entire premise of my company is that it is based out of Southern California and combines western sports entertainment, lucha libre and gritty adult oriented storylines and wrestling with emphasis on brawling hardcore and high spot.

 

 

Most of my wrestlers are either American or Mexican and I hired both Americans and Mexicans who are masked. I went out of my way to develop mediocre indy guys just because they have masks so I can run Lucha de Apuestas.

 

 

One such guy was X-Peria who develop into one of the top juniors in the whole company out of being a nobody.

 

 

I currently have only 3 Japanese. Togi Makabe who never got anywhere due to being too old, and the Shirais and Kairi Sane. I could’ve hired a few more NJPW guys when context came off but I didn’t bother. Although one of the guys SUGI I have in development because he’s masked.

 

Also I’m grooming young 22 year old Japanese guy Pegaso Illuminar in development he’s developing really well over the last 2 years. He’s also masked and will either be pushed in tag division or junior

[CQI13]

I wasn't necessarily thinking that, but with the response being "Bruh" I couldn't resist finding Russo's diatribe.

 

That is a pretty cool set up you have though.

[Ben Nook]

Yeah honestly I have a hard time finding characters for Japanese guys because of the focus on “pure wrestling”

 

 

It’s the same reason I skipped on Johnny Gargano despite him having good stats in the game and even ok charisma. I could give angles and characters to my dojo or generated guys or to people I have never heard of but if I know the person in real life and they are bland in real life I will book them bland and my organization is anti-bland. I try to give everyone some sort of niche.

 

Even Makabe had a “handler” and was supposed to be an unchained animal type but it just never worked out with his age decline.

 

I definitely need to be better with Io though.

 

The best part about my setup isn’t even what I listed. I actually have 3 performance centers and 2 development companies.

 

Two PCs in US , one giving 12 men and 12 women. And one PC in Norestre which gives an even split of Mexican workers.

 

My main development territory is in Mexico and is Medium size, Cain Velasquez is champion and tag champs are a combo of Ariel Dominguez and Dylan Bostic. I hired a lot of random unemployed guys who were super young just to develop them makes the game more fun.

Women’s champion is my first “super prospect” named Vicki Naess from Scotland, she has 60 Psychology, 82 SQ, 82 Charisma, 81 Microphone and 87 Sex Appeal and 65 Puroresu at 19. And she can still go up a size when she’s older.

 

The second development territory is in Canada and includes all non Hispanic and non masked wrestlers, but mostly with an emphasis on unemployed wrestlers who have been jobless since the s we started but have some talents. It’s self referentially named “No Wrestler Left Behind” and is in Canada and is small. The champion there is some super rookie named Jonn Lapointe who is basically a 20 year old Kevin Owens with like 16 Star Qualify but 80s in charisma and mic. He is already one of the best wrestling guys in the whole company.

 

The fun part too is I have Psicosis IV in development as well as Shocked Jr and another second generation lucha guy and they all have insane potential. Psicosis starts as a rookie with 88 Star Qualities!

 

Soon I will be able to slowly phase out all the former WWE guys and replace them with all masked wrestlers and “my guys” that came from my developmental territories and dojos like Korey Jarvis, X-Peria, and the recently debuted King Jorge IV, a guy with Roman reigns size and rey mysterios athleticism.

 

 

I’m pretty excited about this file.

[Queenfan12]

I'm a pretty creative type, in that I have plans for how my stories will go, but when it comes time to actually execute them, I honestly struggle a lot.

[thejd44]

I have a really hard time booking compelling tag team wrestling. It seems SO much easier to build a good singles feud, but with tag teams? It's messy... and usually none of the four people involved have high enough skills in entertainment to get a hot storyline.

 

Ugh, yeah. I like good tag team wrestling, but I can't book it at all. I think it's because there are only a few and I feel like feuds get repetitive (I try to not recycle the same matches over and over; I don't think a feud should be the same people having the same match every single show).

 

It's even harder when booking an indie, which I do. It's extra extra hard when I book a women's promotion, which I do. My "tag division" is basically 3-4 regular teams and randomly thrown together people I hire for a show to put others over. It sucks.

 

When it comes specifically to the game: I am awful with booking angles. Because the exact angle I want is never in the game, and it takes too long/I'm too lazy to write something up. So I end up just using "Save from 2 on 1 attack" every show even though it's not really the same angle.

[Psyentifik]

When it comes specifically to the game: I am awful with booking angles. Because the exact angle I want is never in the game, and it takes too long/I'm too lazy to write something up. So I end up just using "Save from 2 on 1 attack" every show even though it's not really the same angle.

 

I am more mechanical in my approach to angles so they are all freestyle and I usually have 3 angles, depending on product, which includes at least 1 of my 3-4 guys who are talented entertainers with a talented entertainer non-wrestler. It's an RTG game as well so I throw the user character in every single angle (not using towards the achievements), which makes no sense but eh. This could be considered a weakness / bias if not just outright gamey. I am constantly thinking of my user character before everyone else.

 

I also rely heavily on stables for my story lines. I struggle with story lines if there aren't at least 4 people in it just to mix different pairs for matches. Some day I will stop being lazy and think through a story line from start to finish and get more creative.

[effigies]

When booking hardcore: I am a sucker for the Traditionalist who comes in to trash all these losers who have to resort to violence because they can't rassle. Eric Tyler redux becomes my main villain everytime.

 

When booking entertainment: I'm a sucker for supernatural gimmicks. Oh, you're a demonic entity who wants to wrestle - mega push. Oh, you have magic powers thanks to your mask - mega push. Etc.

 

Also, I have a soft spot for the true blue technician. Guy will get undue booking even when the results don't come from it.

 

The comedy guy getting a main title run. I try hard to build the guy up to the right level to get a main title win.

 

For any fed: I have a soft spot for alumni. The nostalgia bump is real (in my head). Even guys who were unimpressive get a call once a year unless they make trouble.

[The Dynamite Sid]

Absolute point blank refusal to set up loads of feeder companies or use performance centres. Just feels too gamey and abusable to me. Its a thing I have in lots of games actually where I insist on RP over min-maxing.

 

In terms of booking I love to have an occult stable or some kind of "secret society" mega heel stable running things. Illuminati type stuff yknow. They generally kill off all the top babyfaces and end up with all the belts and all the power until I find a giant Primus Allen / Brock Lesnar type to come in and obliterate them all. I've done that story on three separate saves now but even when I don't go all the way with it I still use the theme for the stable all the time.

 

I'm also a big one for going against my own IRL preferences. In real life I love the smaller work rate heavy guys. HBK, Omega, AJ, Bryan, guys like that. When I'm booking in TEW I always book huge muscle bound guys at the expense of the smaller dudes even though I hate that IRL. Technicians especially suffer. I love Bret Hart in reality but people like that are a little too bland to make it in my SWF.

 

Final thing as well is that I love tough guys. If anyone wins a backstage fight or acts as a policeman or locker room leader they tend to get a push.