(Re-)balancing Act

[shamelessposer]

There's been a bunch of complaints on the forums over the last few months about how certain game systems seem to make long-term saves untenable. Workers get better too fast, there's too many stars, nobody seems to run out of money. A few of these problems feel like they could have some (hopefully) simple solutions.

 

Popularity Caps

I know there were a couple of complaints about popularity caps which led to popularity restrictions being eased, but I'd like to see an in-game option (maybe on the database level?) to revert to the popularity caps we had on release.

 

Skill Scaling

Another potential option that could be incorporated on the database level would be a scaler for skill increases. Personally, I'd like to see skill increases slowed down to about a third of what they are (so workers take a decade or so to hit their peaks rather than only a few years). It would be great if this was an option that would allow mod makers to adjust things to align with their game worlds.

 

The Money Problem

I don't have an easy solution for this one, but something needs to be done about the financial situation in the game. It seems borderline impossible for most promotions to lose money and once a promotion gets to the upper end of Medium it's never going to be in any real danger again. Hitting Medium (or Cult) in 2016 used to be a scary time for a promotion, but now it's very easy for a company to hang around indefinitely. I don't know if the answer is as simple as reducing income to a fraction of what it is now, but I once tried using the in-game editor to reduce SWF's popularity by forty points AND putting it ten million dollars in debt and a year later the promotion was back at Medium and had an eight digit bank account again.

[liontamer]

I don't know if it would be worth it as the game isn't meant to be an exact simulation, but I could reach out to an old classmate that works in finance for a major promotion that can maybe give some ideas on what numbers are off putting everything out of balance.

 

One thing that I do know is off in my game is that when I was small, I signed a bunch of people to long written deals for 30-50 bucks so I'd have stable roster. I'm now much bigger and still have those contracts. I don't even pay travel for some of them (and I routinely go between GL, Tri State and SW, so much of my roster probably looses money). I have yet to have anyone ask for a raise 12 months in.

 

Sometimes the difference in requests for money per month vs per show also seem way off. I signed someone recently that wanted 220 per show or I think it was 14,500 per month. That's an easy choice.

[shamelessposer]

I don't know if it would be worth it as the game isn't meant to be an exact simulation, but I could reach out to an old classmate that works in finance for a major promotion that can maybe give some ideas on what numbers are off putting everything out of balance.

 

Realism is not nearly as important as playability. Ideally, finances should remain scary for any promotion that doesn't have a national broadcasting deal, and losing that TV deal should cause even a national promotion to start hemorrhaging money.

[Sprout1883]

Realism is not nearly as important as playability. Ideally, finances should remain scary for any promotion that doesn't have a national broadcasting deal, and losing that TV deal should cause even a national promotion to start hemorrhaging money.

 

 

yeah it doesn't matter what the numbers are particularly, they just need to be balanced against each other.

 

Once you start making money, it seems there is no real danger

[d12345]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="shamelessposer" data-cite="shamelessposer" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="52430" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div><p> <strong>The Money Problem</strong></p><p> I don't have an easy solution for this one, but something needs to be done about the financial situation in the game. It seems borderline impossible for most promotions to lose money and once a promotion gets to the upper end of Medium it's never going to be in any real danger again. </p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> There is some game balancing that you can do in your database to "solve" for this right now. In my default c-verse database I created an "era" that more closely mirrors today by making TV and PPV ratings "Massively Lower."</p><p> </p><p> In the C-Verse this makes it super tough to survive a down industry/economy with certain medium sized companies (CWA, PGHW, and BHOTWG have all gone into the red in my save).</p><p> </p><p> I also lowered the reach of all PPV providers. Most are tiny - Small, with only a select few hitting medium. This makes PPV buy-rates more realistic. No modern company should be breaking 1 million buys unless they are Titanic sized IMO.</p><p> </p><p> I get why this isn't the default but I think it makes the game a bit more sim.</p>

[TheChef]

There is some game balancing that you can do in your database to "solve" for this right now. In my default c-verse database I created an "era" that more closely mirrors today by making TV and PPV ratings "Massively Lower."

 

In the C-Verse this makes it super tough to survive a down industry/economy with certain medium sized companies (CWA, PGHW, and BHOTWG have all gone into the red in my save).

 

I also lowered the reach of all PPV providers. Most are tiny - Small, with only a select few hitting medium. This makes PPV buy-rates more realistic. No modern company should be breaking 1 million buys unless they are Titanic sized IMO.

 

I get why this isn't the default but I think it makes the game a bit more sim.

 

 

I think it's going to have to be something like this, if anything. Maybe as an option in the preferences, so that it's part of the game and not a work-around. I have been someone who has been very critical of the (lack of) balancing in TEW 2020, especially when it comes to long-term saves, but I also realise that people are 8 months into saves and a sudden re-adjustment now would ruin a lot of those saves. But an easy / hard mode for new saves, having an effect like the era system you describe could be a decent solution.

[liontamer]

Some other minor things that could also help....

 

I currently run a medium company that makes a ton of money and have two child promotions, one loses about 2K/month, and one has become very popular generating about 800k/month.

 

I've been trying to roughly stay even when able, by investing in upgrades to my broadcaster, dojo, etc each month to avoid wasting money on taxes, which caused me to notice 2 things.

 

For those struggling to make money at smaller sizes, I realized taxes aren't paid monthly, they are paid annually and that could make it easier to raise sums of money needed for different investments and balance out the annual better. Right now if I have a month with a 2,500 loss and another with a 2,500 gain, I'm getting taxed on the gain, where as in reality my net is 0 and I'd pay no taxes. Say I trade months back forth and maybe 4 up and 8 down months and I finish in the red. The game would tax me on the profitable months costing me money, where as in real life I'd claim a capital loss, getting a little money back. Right now, I've lost 16 Million in the past game year, but got taxed on my 2 profitable months, even though they averaged a 200k gain, well below what I've lost. My save will be fine given that all of my losses were tied to investments making me more profitable, but when it's difficult to make money at smaller sizes, this could be huge.

 

For my child promotions, I'm actually not sure how this would really work, but I'm thinking that since I own them I would file for all 3 companies after pooling the money. It seems the game taxes their profits, and then passes it onto me, which is different. For example, one month I made an investment on the last day that put me down 800k, because my child promotion was up 850k and I figure that would give me a profit of 50k (well 48k when subtracting out the other promotion) and minimize tax burden. Instead they got taxed first and then I ended up 200k+ in the red for the month.

 

 

Some other $$$ things,

 

if you didn't see the thread the other day, an error was found by one of the players and I tested and posted results, but it's way cheaper to open the smallest PC and upgrade than to open at the desired size. you save about 60%. I'm thinking that wasn't intended. It also seems maintaining the PC is too cheap factoring the cost of staff and the facility (if you shrink in size can you sell a dojo/pc?). I'm nearly maxed out and at 300k/month. Considering the size of the facility, trainers, medical and support staff, that might not be enough

 

Next, there is no battle at medium and people talk about how easy money is at medium and above. Why not have a battle at that size as well to make it hard to stay afloat and get to large in the first place. A 5-10% drop/boost in the ratings would be huge considering broadcast income, ticket sales, and merch effects. If it isn't already PPV should be more competitive than TV since most fans won't shell out for several different companies PPVs, but may watch them all on TV for free. If you're the only one at medium it could still be penalty worthy if there are several companies bigger than you in you area, the amount of which could be tied to the wrestling industry rating in that area (i.e if it's 10 or less any promotion not in the #1 spot is penalized, if its 30 or so, than the #2 is spared the penalty, and so on.