Testing Wrestler Skill Improvement

[Willsky]

I was playing around in the game the other day and trying to create a roster of purely generated workers, and saw some interesting things when tracking their skill increases - some seemed to shoot up, while others stayed flat. I had them in a performance centre and it had quite a big effect.

 

So, being a nerd, I set up a test to see how worker stats develop over time under different conditions. The results aren't going to blow anyone's minds, since most experienced players will know roughly what factors are most important, but there might be something interesting to get into.

 

How I did the test:

 

- Started with a completely empty database

- Added one parent company with 6 child companies to be the testing pools

- Each company started with popularity of 40 in their home region ONLY.

- Companies were based in the UK, one for each region.

- Added identical workers to each company, all aged 18 with maximum potential.

- 12 workers for each company in total. 3 men with 0 in every stat, 3 men with 50 in every stat, 3 women with 0 in every stat, and 3 women with 50 in every stat (spoiler: gender made zero difference, as I'd expected).

- Each child company was assigned an identical owner and booker. These had the roles of road agent and referee.

- No broadcasters, other workers or companies were added, and settings were changed so none would generate.

- Created 3 Performance Centres with 100% Facilities and 100% Training

- Turned off injuries, relationships, and deaths.

 

The 6 companies were the only thing that varied. They were as follows:

 

1. Control: 0 shows on the schedule, and no access to a performance centre

2. PC Only: 0 shows on the schedule, all 12 workers attend the performance centre

3. Tour Only: Created Tour schedule with 100+ events. No access to a PC

4. Weekly Only: Schedule with one event every week major (not TV). No acces to a PC

5. Tour & PC: Created Tour schedule with 100+ events. All 12 workers attend the performance centre

6. Weekly & PC: Schedule with one event every week major (not TV). All 12 workers attend the performance centre.

 

I believe I kept all other variables equal for everyone. However, during the simulation, some bookers and owners stepped down - this may have affected the booking, but I don't believe it will have had a significant impact on development.

Despite turning off relationships, some stories did arise when workers started dating "someone from outside the industry". I doubt this had any impact on their development.

 

I simulated the game for 10 years, stopping at the end of each year to record stat changes. I categorised the stats into 6 sections:

1. In-ring - the highest value from Brawling, Puroresu, Hardcore, Technical, Aerial & Flashiness.

2. Psychology - just Psychology on its own.

3. Performance - the highest value out of Charisma, Microphone & Acting

4. Basics - just the basics skill on its own.

5. Fundamentals - an average of Safety and Consistency.

6. Selling - just the selling skill on its own.

 

I chose these stats because they're the ones which changed significantly and affect a worker's performance. I didn't track Experience, Respect, Reputation and the physical skills (it was enough work already).

 

Results

 

Something that became apparent after a few years was that workers have a random cap on every stat. Although they all had maximum potential, very few of them reached 100 in any skill. Most caps were in the 80-95 region, while a few were in the 70s. The lowest I saw was 67, the only one less than 70. Thanks to the caps, the results when in the upper reaches of stats are a bit messy. Pay attention to the rate of change rather than the highest number reached. For example, a worker can progress extremely fast but reach a cap of 75 while another progresses slower and reaches 100. I consider the fast progression to be a better indicator of skill development because the cap is randomly assigned.

 

As I created 3 workers with 0 in everything and 3 with 50 I was able to calculate the average to account for any variation. As it turned out, before they reached the caps, workers in the same company progressed at an almost identical rate. Often, the stats were exactly the same. The maximum variation I saw was a difference of 2 between one worker and another.

 

However, when the caps came into play, a worker with a very low cap would drag down the average. Again, take all the high-end numbers with a pinch of salt.

 

So what did I find out? Which was best?

 

Here's a link to the Excel file I put together if you want to look in detail for yourself. Worker Development Test

 

Tour & PC came out on top for pretty much everything.

Weekly & PC and Tour Only fought for second place.

Weekly Only and PC Only were very similar.

As expected, Control was worst for every skill, although not as terrible as you might think.

 

In-ring, Performance and Selling increased at a similar rate, with a maximum yearly increase of +14 from 0-30, a limit which reduced as the worker developed. These were the slowest skills to increase.

Psychology increased rapidly from 0-50, with a maximum yearly increase of +33 when starting at 0. However, increases slowed down dramatically as the worker developed. Around the 75-80 mark, it was slow to rise.

Basics and Fundamentals increases rapidly for all workers, with a maximum yearly increase of +33. Even with the Control group starting at 0, they reached their cap after 5 years. With Tour & PC, they capped out after 3 years. There wasn't that much difference between groups, so I haven't spoken about Basics and Fundamentals much in the following sections.

 

 

Control Group

Despite not wrestling a single match or attending any training, wrestlers starting at 0 in the Control group still increased their skills significantly. In-Ring, Performance and Selling reached 64, while Basics and Fundamentals reached their cap after 5 years.

Psychology was the slowest to increase, and only reached 47 after 10 years.

It was a similar story for wrestlers starting at 50. They reached around 81 in In-Ring, Performance and Selling, and 69 in Psychology.

 

PC Only

These wrestlers didn't wrestle a single match, but spent ten years training.

There was significant difference in all skills compared to the Control group. In-Ring and Selling reached 78, Performance reached 80 and Psychology was the biggest surprise, reaching 84.

Psychology rose much faster than workers in Tour Only and Weekly Only, but the others eventually caught up. Interestingly, the workers who started at 50 saw a slower Psychology increase than Tour Only, and similar to Weekly Only.

This suggests the PC is best for lower level workers getting a bit of Psychology, but ring-time is better to get the higher scores.

 

Tour Only

Wrestlers who only wrestled on tour, without any training, grew their skills much faster than the Control Group, as well as beating PC Only and Weekly Only in most categories.

For workers starting at 0, In-Ring and Performance rose to 87, while selling got to 82.

Psychology didn't rise as fast as PC Only, but was still fast.

For workers starting at 50, all skill categories reached their caps within the 10 years. Performance and Selling were first to reach the cap, after 7 years, getting to 89 and 88 respectively. Psychology took another year, and In-Ring made it in year 9.

 

Weekly Only

Wrestlers who wrestled once a week without training gained skills slower than Tour Only and at a similar rate to PC Only.

For workers starting at 0, In-Ring and Performance reached 81 (and Selling reached 80) - marginally better than PC Only, but Psychology was slower to rise.

For workers starting at 50, the results were similar. I think Psychology and Selling got a bit skewed by two workers reaching their cap and one still rising slowly, thus making the average change very small.

 

Tour & PC

This produced the highest gains of all.

Workers starting at 0 saw an increase to 90, 88 and 84 in In-Ring, Performance and Selling respectively. This group saw one of only two instances where wrestlers starting at 0 reached the cap in one skill. After 7 years, they reached the cap of 84 in Psychology. Two comments here: First, the score went up to 88, then dropped to a steady 84 from then on, and second, all three workers had a relatively low cap, meaning if their cap was higher, it would have taken a bit longer to reach.

Wrestlers starting at 50 reached caps in every single skill. The most notable was, again, Psychology, which again had a very low cap, just 79, which was reached after 5 years. I suspect if the cap were higher, it'd be more in line with the other skills which capped out after 7 or 8 years.

 

Weekly & PC

The Weekly schedule showed it isn't as good for worker development as Tour & PC, despite the weekly shows being important events rather than tours.

Workers starting at 0 reached 83 in In-Ring, 86 in Psychology and 85 in Performance. This was almost as good as Tour & PC.

Selling reached its cap after 9 years, although this cap was only 78, but it rose at the same rate as the other skills, so had the cap been higher, it would have been in line.

For wrestlers starting at 50, they didn't reach the Selling cap - they got to 94 and were still rising. However, they did reach the caps for other skills at around the 7-8 year mark, which was similar to Tour & PC

 

 

Conclusions

To maximise your workers' skill improvements, use a Performance Centre and Touring Schedule.

Worker skills will improve naturally without any matches or training, so it doesn't really matter what you do.

Skill increases have a limit per year, so you can't expect numbers to shoot up drastically, especially in the case of In-Ring, Performance and Selling.

Even workers with maximum potential have caps to some of their skills, and they won't go past them.

Performance Centres give a good boost to Psychology, especially with lower scores. However, ring time is important when they get better.

 

Potential Future Tests

If you've read this far, you're probably at least somewhat interested in this extremely specific and nerdy test. Let me know if you'd like to see more. If so, I have some ideas of further tests and I'd like to hear some suggestions:

- How much the Prodigy and Not a Natural attributes affect worker growth.

- The difference in growth between workers of varying potentials.

- How much mentors improve skill growth

- Skill growth at different ages

- Comparing Tour schedules with Constant schedules (same number of shows, but different show importance)

- Comparing different Training levels of Performance Centres

- Worker improvements for non-wrestlers

 

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, or at the very least learned something. If not, well, let's call this all a massive waste of time and move on.

[Willsky]

I was playing around in the game the other day and trying to create a roster of purely generated workers, and saw some interesting things when tracking their skill increases - some seemed to shoot up, while others stayed flat. I had them in a performance centre and it had quite a big effect.

 

So, being a nerd, I set up a test to see how worker stats develop over time under different conditions. The results aren't going to blow anyone's minds, since most experienced players will know roughly what factors are most important, but there might be something interesting to get into.

 

How I did the test:

 

- Started with a completely empty database

- Added one parent company with 6 child companies to be the testing pools

- Each company started with popularity of 40 in their home region ONLY.

- Companies were based in the UK, one for each region.

- Added identical workers to each company, all aged 18 with maximum potential.

- 12 workers for each company in total. 3 men with 0 in every stat, 3 men with 50 in every stat, 3 women with 0 in every stat, and 3 women with 50 in every stat (spoiler: gender made zero difference, as I'd expected).

- Each child company was assigned an identical owner and booker. These had the roles of road agent and referee.

- No broadcasters, other workers or companies were added, and settings were changed so none would generate.

- Created 3 Performance Centres with 100% Facilities and 100% Training

- Turned off injuries, relationships, and deaths.

 

The 6 companies were the only thing that varied. They were as follows:

 

1. Control: 0 shows on the schedule, and no access to a performance centre

2. PC Only: 0 shows on the schedule, all 12 workers attend the performance centre

3. Tour Only: Created Tour schedule with 100+ events. No access to a PC

4. Weekly Only: Schedule with one event every week major (not TV). No acces to a PC

5. Tour & PC: Created Tour schedule with 100+ events. All 12 workers attend the performance centre

6. Weekly & PC: Schedule with one event every week major (not TV). All 12 workers attend the performance centre.

 

I believe I kept all other variables equal for everyone. However, during the simulation, some bookers and owners stepped down - this may have affected the booking, but I don't believe it will have had a significant impact on development.

Despite turning off relationships, some stories did arise when workers started dating "someone from outside the industry". I doubt this had any impact on their development.

 

I simulated the game for 10 years, stopping at the end of each year to record stat changes. I categorised the stats into 6 sections:

1. In-ring - the highest value from Brawling, Puroresu, Hardcore, Technical, Aerial & Flashiness.

2. Psychology - just Psychology on its own.

3. Performance - the highest value out of Charisma, Microphone & Acting

4. Basics - just the basics skill on its own.

5. Fundamentals - an average of Safety and Consistency.

6. Selling - just the selling skill on its own.

 

I chose these stats because they're the ones which changed significantly and affect a worker's performance. I didn't track Experience, Respect, Reputation and the physical skills (it was enough work already).

 

Results

 

Something that became apparent after a few years was that workers have a random cap on every stat. Although they all had maximum potential, very few of them reached 100 in any skill. Most caps were in the 80-95 region, while a few were in the 70s. The lowest I saw was 67, the only one less than 70. Thanks to the caps, the results when in the upper reaches of stats are a bit messy. Pay attention to the rate of change rather than the highest number reached. For example, a worker can progress extremely fast but reach a cap of 75 while another progresses slower and reaches 100. I consider the fast progression to be a better indicator of skill development because the cap is randomly assigned.

 

As I created 3 workers with 0 in everything and 3 with 50 I was able to calculate the average to account for any variation. As it turned out, before they reached the caps, workers in the same company progressed at an almost identical rate. Often, the stats were exactly the same. The maximum variation I saw was a difference of 2 between one worker and another.

 

However, when the caps came into play, a worker with a very low cap would drag down the average. Again, take all the high-end numbers with a pinch of salt.

 

So what did I find out? Which was best?

 

Here's a link to the Excel file I put together if you want to look in detail for yourself. Worker Development Test

 

Tour & PC came out on top for pretty much everything.

Weekly & PC and Tour Only fought for second place.

Weekly Only and PC Only were very similar.

As expected, Control was worst for every skill, although not as terrible as you might think.

 

In-ring, Performance and Selling increased at a similar rate, with a maximum yearly increase of +14 from 0-30, a limit which reduced as the worker developed. These were the slowest skills to increase.

Psychology increased rapidly from 0-50, with a maximum yearly increase of +33 when starting at 0. However, increases slowed down dramatically as the worker developed. Around the 75-80 mark, it was slow to rise.

Basics and Fundamentals increases rapidly for all workers, with a maximum yearly increase of +33. Even with the Control group starting at 0, they reached their cap after 5 years. With Tour & PC, they capped out after 3 years. There wasn't that much difference between groups, so I haven't spoken about Basics and Fundamentals much in the following sections.

 

 

Control Group

Despite not wrestling a single match or attending any training, wrestlers starting at 0 in the Control group still increased their skills significantly. In-Ring, Performance and Selling reached 64, while Basics and Fundamentals reached their cap after 5 years.

Psychology was the slowest to increase, and only reached 47 after 10 years.

It was a similar story for wrestlers starting at 50. They reached around 81 in In-Ring, Performance and Selling, and 69 in Psychology.

 

PC Only

These wrestlers didn't wrestle a single match, but spent ten years training.

There was significant difference in all skills compared to the Control group. In-Ring and Selling reached 78, Performance reached 80 and Psychology was the biggest surprise, reaching 84.

Psychology rose much faster than workers in Tour Only and Weekly Only, but the others eventually caught up. Interestingly, the workers who started at 50 saw a slower Psychology increase than Tour Only, and similar to Weekly Only.

This suggests the PC is best for lower level workers getting a bit of Psychology, but ring-time is better to get the higher scores.

 

Tour Only

Wrestlers who only wrestled on tour, without any training, grew their skills much faster than the Control Group, as well as beating PC Only and Weekly Only in most categories.

For workers starting at 0, In-Ring and Performance rose to 87, while selling got to 82.

Psychology didn't rise as fast as PC Only, but was still fast.

For workers starting at 50, all skill categories reached their caps within the 10 years. Performance and Selling were first to reach the cap, after 7 years, getting to 89 and 88 respectively. Psychology took another year, and In-Ring made it in year 9.

 

Weekly Only

Wrestlers who wrestled once a week without training gained skills slower than Tour Only and at a similar rate to PC Only.

For workers starting at 0, In-Ring and Performance reached 81 (and Selling reached 80) - marginally better than PC Only, but Psychology was slower to rise.

For workers starting at 50, the results were similar. I think Psychology and Selling got a bit skewed by two workers reaching their cap and one still rising slowly, thus making the average change very small.

 

Tour & PC

This produced the highest gains of all.

Workers starting at 0 saw an increase to 90, 88 and 84 in In-Ring, Performance and Selling respectively. This group saw one of only two instances where wrestlers starting at 0 reached the cap in one skill. After 7 years, they reached the cap of 84 in Psychology. Two comments here: First, the score went up to 88, then dropped to a steady 84 from then on, and second, all three workers had a relatively low cap, meaning if their cap was higher, it would have taken a bit longer to reach.

Wrestlers starting at 50 reached caps in every single skill. The most notable was, again, Psychology, which again had a very low cap, just 79, which was reached after 5 years. I suspect if the cap were higher, it'd be more in line with the other skills which capped out after 7 or 8 years.

 

Weekly & PC

The Weekly schedule showed it isn't as good for worker development as Tour & PC, despite the weekly shows being important events rather than tours.

Workers starting at 0 reached 83 in In-Ring, 86 in Psychology and 85 in Performance. This was almost as good as Tour & PC.

Selling reached its cap after 9 years, although this cap was only 78, but it rose at the same rate as the other skills, so had the cap been higher, it would have been in line.

For wrestlers starting at 50, they didn't reach the Selling cap - they got to 94 and were still rising. However, they did reach the caps for other skills at around the 7-8 year mark, which was similar to Tour & PC

 

 

Conclusions

To maximise your workers' skill improvements, use a Performance Centre and Touring Schedule.

Worker skills will improve naturally without any matches or training, so it doesn't really matter what you do.

Skill increases have a limit per year, so you can't expect numbers to shoot up drastically, especially in the case of In-Ring, Performance and Selling.

Even workers with maximum potential have caps to some of their skills, and they won't go past them.

Performance Centres give a good boost to Psychology, especially with lower scores. However, ring time is important when they get better.

 

Potential Future Tests

If you've read this far, you're probably at least somewhat interested in this extremely specific and nerdy test. Let me know if you'd like to see more. If so, I have some ideas of further tests and I'd like to hear some suggestions:

- How much the Prodigy and Not a Natural attributes affect worker growth.

- The difference in growth between workers of varying potentials.

- How much mentors improve skill growth

- Skill growth at different ages

- Comparing Tour schedules with Constant schedules (same number of shows, but different show importance)

- Comparing different Training levels of Performance Centres

- Worker improvements for non-wrestlers

 

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, or at the very least learned something. If not, well, let's call this all a massive waste of time and move on.

[Almaida]

This was absolutely fantastic, thanks so much for sharing. Skill development is something I've spent a lot of time on but have never come close to anything this detailed. Very interesting stuff.

 

I'd love to see more, pretty much all of those test ideas sound interesting to me.

[Clark K]

This was really informative. A little surprising as well, since I rarely see workers develop much without regular matches. Could it be because the guys in your test have higher than average potential? I would also be interested in seeing the results of the other tests. Seeing how quickly workers develop by working on house shows would also be pretty cool

[chm39]

Yep I was nerdy enough to read this.

[St. Templar]

We're all nerds.

 

But, that's cool, though, right?!? :D

 

St.T

[BrokenCycle]

I really respect the work you put into this. I never knew that PCs were so viable in the game. I barely recognize their existence.

 

However, I think it should be noted before people stan tour shows, you're basically having to book twice as many shows as normal, for very rarely any benefit to your popularity, and that gets very annoying after a while.

[khriztian]

Very interesting indeed!

Thank you

[smw88]

Interesting stuff, thanks

[eayragt]

Top job!

[Willsky]

This was absolutely fantastic, thanks so much for sharing. Skill development is something I've spent a lot of time on but have never come close to anything this detailed. Very interesting stuff.

 

I'd love to see more, pretty much all of those test ideas sound interesting to me.

 

Very interesting indeed!

Thank you

 

Interesting stuff, thanks

 

Top job!

 

Great to know you were all interested, thanks for commenting.

 

This was really informative. A little surprising as well, since I rarely see workers develop much without regular matches. Could it be because the guys in your test have higher than average potential? I would also be interested in seeing the results of the other tests. Seeing how quickly workers develop by working on house shows would also be pretty cool

 

I think having them on maximum potential (or extremely high, I can't remember the exact wording - it's the highest category anyway) definitely caused them to grow without any matches or training. It would definitely be interesting to see how fast things grow at the different potential levels.

 

I hadn't thought about house shows, but it's definitely one to include in any future tests around different schedules.

 

Yep I was nerdy enough to read this.

 

We're all nerds.

 

But, that's cool, though, right?!? :D

 

St.T

 

The fact we're fans of this game puts us in a certain level of nerdiness, so we're all in good company!

 

I really respect the work you put into this. I never knew that PCs were so viable in the game. I barely recognize their existence.

 

However, I think it should be noted before people stan tour shows, you're basically having to book twice as many shows as normal, for very rarely any benefit to your popularity, and that gets very annoying after a while.

 

I think perhaps because they're so rare. In the CornellVerse there's only one default PC (SWF) and I'm not sure how many workers actually attend it. Plus they're extremely expensive to set up and run, so only the biggest companies have them. I admit, I try to get them as soon as possible, mostly because I like seeing numbers go up.

 

Totally agreed on the tour shows. In terms of game time invested, tour shows take a lot, especially if you want to make sure your young workers are getting ring-time. The auto-booker doesn't quite cut it for me. I usually end up switching to house shows if I run a Japanese fed just to save all that clicking. Fair play if you do book them, though, it's just not for me.

 

 

 

Given the interest in the first experiment, I'll definitely do a few more. Starting with the potential. Should be pretty easy to set up. Then the following test will go deeper into schedules: house shows, constant, TV etc.

[Sisma]

Very interesting read! Thanks for putting in so much effort!

[Sharkn20]

Very cool experiment man, thanks.

[Willsky]

The next test is done.

 

In this one, I compared the development of workers with different potentials. The player's handbook says there are 8 potential levels, but in the editor, there are only 6. Not sure if this is an error in the handbook, or if I've got confused somewhere.

 

Anyway, I set the game up similarly to the first test.

- Empty database, with only UK active.

- 2 companies, one with 0 events and 0 training, the other with a Tour schedule and access to a Performance Centre (just like the Control and Tour & PC companies from the first test)

- Each company had 18 workers - 3 workers with Very Low potential, 3 with Low, 3 with Average, 3 with Good, 3 with Very Good and 3 with Excellent.

- Both companies had identical bookers and owners who acted as road agents and referees.

- All workers were male, exactly the same age (born Dec 2001) and started at 0 for every skill (except reputation which started at 50).

 

All the other setup (no broadcasters, companies starting at 40 pop, etc. is identical to the first test).

 

The aim of the test was to determine if workers of higher potential improve their skills at a faster rate than those with lower potential. The secondary aim was to find out the skill caps.

 

I ended up simulating the game for 20 years, as the Control group workers hadn't reached their caps by 10, or even 15 years. By Year 16, skill improvement was so minimal each year that I decided to simulate the final four years without collecting data for the intervening years, just to speed things up.

 

I kept track of skill changes in the following categories.

 

1. In-ring - the highest value from Brawling, Puroresu, Hardcore, Technical, Aerial & Flashiness.

2. Psychology - just Psychology on its own.

3. Performance - the highest value out of Charisma, Microphone & Acting

6. Selling - just the selling skill on its own.

4. Basics - just the basics skill on its own.

5. Fundamentals - an average of Safety and Consistency.

 

In ring, Performance and Selling advance at the same rate, as found out in the first test. Basics and Fundamentals develop much faster. Psychology has its own trajectory with a rapid increase at lower levels, but is very slow when it reaches the upper quartile.

 

Results

 

Here's a Mediafire link to the results in an Excel format.

The first sheet has all the compiled data while the others have raw data from each year.

 

Test 1

The first test was whether higher potential caused a higher rate of skill gain. The answer to that is NO.

At low skill levels, the numbers increase at the same rate, with insignificant variation.

When skills rise to the 50-60 mark, the data shows the higher potential workers gaining skills at a higher rate. However, this is misleading. The values are an average of three workers. When one worker reaches their skill cap, they stop increasing and this drags down the average. You can see in the raw data that skills continue to rise at the same rate across every potential range for all workers who haven't reached their cap.

 

Saying that, the lowest potential workers never increase faster than high potential workers, while high potential workers occasionally increase at 1 or 2 points (hardly significant) more than low potential. If there is an effect here, it's extremely small.

 

Test 2

 

The second part of the test was to determine skill caps for different potential abilities. The results were certainly interesting.

 

The AVERAGE skill cap (plus lowest & highest recorded caps) across all categories for each potential level were as follows:

 

Very Low: 61.2 (L: 51, H: 80)

Low: 71.1 (L: 57, H: 85)

Average: 78.7 (L:61, H: 93)

Good: 78.5 (L: 66, H 86)

Very Good: 80.5 (L: 67, H: 94)

Excellent: 88.5 (L:80, H:100)

 

The first thing to note was that the lowest skill cap recorded across all workers was 51. That was for a very low potential worker in the Tour & PC group. All other skill caps were higher. That means, no matter how terrible you think a worker is going to be, even without any training or matches, a Very Low potential worker starting at 18 will reach 51 in most skills. Of course, when it comes to In-Ring, I've taken the highest value out of Brawling, Puroresu, Hardcore, Technical and Aerial. But, to be honest, most workers had an even spread, so the other skills wouldn't be that bad. The worker in question had 51 in Aerial and 40 in all other In-Ring skills.

 

In fact, on looking at this in the game, all workers had at least 40 in every skill that was recorded (those that rise with development).

 

It's also interesting to see that the highest cap for a Very Low potential was 80. To be fair, that was a bit of an outlier. The second highest cap was 74 and all the others were below 60. This shows the caps are a little porous.

 

The next interesting thing to note is the similarity between average caps in the Average, Good and Very Good potential workers. There's only a 2 point difference, and Average workers actually had a slightly better average cap than Good workers. The range of highest and lowest caps were also similar, although Average workers had a low cap of 61, 6 points lower than Good workers on 66.

 

This suggests Average workers can have significantly lower caps than Good and Very Good workers, but the upper limit is roughly equal.

 

For the Excellent potential workers, caps ranged between 80 and 100 with an average of 88.5. Again, these numbers are taking the highest value skill from a category, so in the case of In-Ring skills, many of the Excellent workers had less than 80 in some of those skills, but their highest skill had a cap of above 80. The lowest cap for an individual In-Ring skill was 62 Brawling in a worker that reached 85 in Technical.

 

Thismeans, no matter what training or experience a wrestler receives, if they have Excellent potential, they'll reach elite levels of performance across the board.

 

Bonus test 3

 

I wondered if the schedules might make a difference to skill caps. We know from the first test those with a Touring schedule and access to the best Performance Centre available advanced at a much faster rate. So I compared the Tour & PC with the Control to see if experience and training affect skill caps.

The answer is a resounding NO.

In fact, on average, Control workers had a slightly higher average cap than those in the Tour & PC company. I don't believe this small difference to be statistically significant and it wouldn't make sense for it to be anything more.

 

 

Final conclusions

 

It seems potential doesn't affect the rate of skill development, at least not significantly.

The difference between skill caps between Very Low and Excellent workers is great, although Very Low workers can still get to a decent level. The difference between one potential level and the next up isn't major, and there's plenty of overlap, especially with the Average, Good and Very Good levels.

 

I think this test is going to benefit mod-makers more than it does players as potential only comes up when editing/creating a new worker. Regardless, I hope everyone finds something interesting to take away from the experiment.

Let me know what you think, and if you find anything interesting in the data.

 

Next experiment is probably going to be honing in on show types. I'm thinking of testing tour shows vs. house shows vs. normal important events vs. TV.

[chm39]

Can't wait til the next.

[eayragt]

Don't do this if you don't want to, but it'd be interesting if you had a test where there were all newbies in a control group vs a fed a with a load of uber talented workers (and newbies), and to see what affect the vets have on the newbies compared to the control group.

[Sharkn20]

This is gold, thanks man.

[Willsky]

Can't wait til the next.

 

This is gold, thanks man.

 

Good to know it's helpful!

 

Don't do this if you don't want to, but it'd be interesting if you had a test where there were all newbies in a control group vs a fed a with a load of uber talented workers (and newbies), and to see what affect the vets have on the newbies compared to the control group.

 

I have that on the list of things to test. In fact, it'll probably be the one after next. To see the effect of working with much better wrestlers. I'd also include another company with veteran workers who act as mentors to see how that affects things. Often I see mentors giving boosts to Psychology or Mic skills, so it'd test whether that can boost the skill cap, or just speeds up development.

[de knegt]

This is great stuff, I love experiments in these types of games to see what happens.

 

The stuff on worker improvements doing tours definitely feels like it matches the eye test very well. At least in all my saves it felt that Japanese workers tended to improve the fastest of all, and your test results pretty much confirm that because near every Japanese company runs touring schedules.

 

Especially with PC's being very rare.