Questions pertaining to match ratings in correlation to pop

[Knedi]

In my original save, I made a company with Greatest rep and Easy settings, then hired my self-created prodigy, who has got all the stuff to make him an absolute star. I admittedly inflated his stats, so hes 19, the 5th most entertaining guy I have (after Gilmore, Valiant, DeBones, Eric Tyler) and the 4th best wrestler (after Gilmore, Valiant, Bryan Vessey), a Prodigy with Gymnastic Background and Dynamo, was the top of my Hidden Gem list, got "Best Rookie" the past month, and road agents Joanne Rodriguez and Skull DeBones have both emailed the "give this kid mic time, hes money" thing. However, two of the four times I gave him the mic unscripted, he struggled and improvised badly, and the other two he had been great. Same with matches- in his three matches so far, one against Vessey was the third highest rated match of my promotion, against Pablo Rodriguez it was decent, but in his tag with Vessey it was a stinker and Vessey was "head and shoulders above everyone in the match." His experience is 23 and consistency is 90, so it's not that. My guess was that it had to do with the product I chose, Three Ring Circus, so I decided to run some tests.

 

I started a game as 21CW, which beforehand I changed to No Style Style (a 70:30 ring/pop split), hired him, and had him face Tommy Cornell in the ME of a show after an angle, then copied the save. I would do this for multiple shows, each with a different opponent. First off, the angles so far have all been great, which lead me to begin something is wrong with the product/pop of Three Ring Circus, because his entertainment skills are some of the highest stats he has. The matches have been better, but still, when he faces another unimportant wrestler, no matter how good they are in the ring, the match result is usually along the lines of "sub-par wrestling." The idea that these unimportant vs unimportant matches are giving me the "little heat" and "no crowd investment" makes sense, but why is that affecting the wrestling? So, for the sake of it, I made another prodigy-style wrestler who rung into the Top 5 Workers of the company and had them face each other. I still get the "subpar wrestling" line multiple times.

 

It makes sense to me that if two unknown God-tier performers were dropped into the PC today and put on NXT that the fans would be bored, but their high skills and performances (in the 60s and 70s) would still make its wrestling good, right? So, my questions, to summarize, are:

1) is the pop supposed to affect match qualities to that extent rather than just the reaction and crowd involvement? If two of your top 5 workers are unknown wrestlers but they still put on a good match, why is the AI rating their performances so badly? I'm not sure if these have to do with the fact that the game doesn't expect such low pop guys to be great workers, which is my fault for the stat inflation and simming through scenarios, but I still don't get why the game wouldn't account for that in a company that relies on pop so little. If Tyler Bate vs MJF was dropped on Raw tomorrow night, even if most people would have no idea who these young dudes wrestling are, if they put on a great match, it wouldn't be called "bad" or "subpar" just because of that lack of pop. In that scenario too, Raw is more of a Sports Entertainment product, something that'd rely on pop even more.

2) What is it that is making my prodigy get penalized in Three Ring Circus angles as opposed to No Style Style despite the high entertainment skills of the worker?

[Jaded]

That’s a super-interesting test! If you’re able to, I’d be intrigued to see what difference boosting experience made. IIRC correctly there’s a penalty for having experience under 30.

[Knedi]

So, some updates: first, I spammed some more angles and he for the first time in about 30 got penalized for "improvising poorly." Once again, I'm not really sure what is affecting that, is it possibly experience? I boosted his entertainment skills even more in the tests so it doesn't make sense for someone, of any experience, with 95+ mic/charisma/star quality/acting to be getting penalized.

 

I boosted both unimportant prodigies experience up to 40 and the score only slightly improved but the tag lines have drastically changed from "subpar" to "great wrestling," with "no or little heat" still, as expected. The angle score has drastically shot up, though, by like 20, which is surprising, considering I only boosted the experience from 23 to 40.

 

And as for the experience penalty, I thought it was under 20, not 30?

[Scott Zodiac]

Three Ring Circus only affects the overall score from matches not angles. I think the consistency stat plays a part here, rather than anything else. I still get penalty notices and still end up with 99 rated angles. How long are the angles you are running and what are they rated on?

 

What are your prodigy’s psychology and selling stats? How long are the matches they are working?

[danyp92]

There is a product called Three Ring Circus like the match focus option. I think they are talking about that.

[Knedi]

Yes, I'm using the Three Ring Circus product, both core and current, in the original save. I'm not sure why his consistency is costing him here. The angles I'm running for these tests are usually about 8-12 mins and rated on Entertainment.

 

Their psych and selling were 88 and 92ish, but when I buffed them again just for the test, now they're 95 and 99. Their matches are ranging 15-20 minutes for these tests.

 

The experience, sex appeal, respect, and menace are his only below 80 stats in these tests. Thats why I was inclined to believe it was that or pop.

[Knedi]

Sorry for the double post, but I thought that this was noteworthy. I started a new save, same NSS product, in 21CW, and just to see, boosted every stat of Langton Herring and Phil Harmonic, two unimportant wrestlers, to 100, except for experience and respect, which I set to 0, and reputation, which I set to 50. Out of 5 tests, three times their 10 minute angle got penalized for "bad improvising" even though they'd be the "perfect" wrestlers. The score was in the 40-45 range. Out of five matches I put them against each other in, I got in the range of high 30s to low 40s and got the "bad wrestling" tag, once again despite their perfect skills. I then boosted their experience up to 30, and ran the same exact tests, same road agent and ref and all.

 

Their match quality improved to a high 50 to low 60 score and then it got the "good wrestling but little heat" tag. Their angle surprised me, though, because despite the experience increase, the angle only rose by about 10 and I still got the "improvised badly" penalty a few times. So, it seems obvious that the experience greatly effects the wrestling, maybe more than the base stats, but what is prompting this "improvising badly" penalty so often? Is it another experience thing?

[Jaded]

Isn't improvising badly just random?

[Knedi]

Is it? Are there factors that affect that? Or is it equally random for all entertainment skills or experience?

[Turkeyninja]

You may be using other attributes you didnt list which may be causing some f the problems.

[Knedi]

Which attributes for which problems were you thinking?