TEW IX Public Beta Release Reaction Thread

[DarK_RaideR]

Alright, finally booked my first show this morning, then promptly spent most of today fiddling with the beta. Few thoughts, in no particular order:

- It's easy to forget with just the demo out so far, but TEW is a highly moddable game. There will be things that allow everyone to customise stuff to their preference. I switched to the larger AI pictures with no background and they seem a lot better now. I converted the CVerse97 database and it came out the other end pretty good, even ran a few saves. Used the old picture pack for them too, and it was equally ok to my eyes. Even the UI will probably look better once custom skins are out and I switch to one that provides more clarity.

- Touching on the previous point, a lot of it is the shock of first contact and having to adjust. Office UI took forever to navigate at first, even though it's not that drastically changed from the previous game, but it used to throw me off. Few 3 month runs and familiarity set in, I was much faster finding what I wanted and switching between things. Likewise, the angle generator took a bit to wrap my head around, but once that was done I could blast out segments just as fast as TEW2020.

- On angles, I do appreciate the new options being based on what a wrestler is actually doing, as opposed to the previous game's batch of choices, which felt like more of an indication of what a worker would be rated on (again, this might be familiarity bias). New version feels more descriptive than gamey, which to me is a plus.

- Similarly, after booking a few shows, it's real easy to navigate the pre and post show bits, especially with the option to right click and skip stuff, as well as some tabs getting auto skipped if there's nothing to do there. It's also nice those tabs go away once you've dealt with them. Makes the decisions feel more important if you can't go back to them and the actual show booking screen clearer.

- Also happy to see touring contracts and schedules return to a more TEW16 kind of format.

- Inner Circle is still fun, but I don't have more to say about it since first checking the beta yesterday. Booking committee has some interesting tweaks, after the 1 man crew bonus I saw today bonuses for having a 2 man group, as well as chemistry between team members. The ideas are also nice in effect, I ended up mostly buying gimmick ideas for debuting workers I really wanted to make a good first impression, while those tied to specific workers do provide an incentive to boost people I wouldn't normally bother with. It's also nice because those with Creative tags actually come up with such ideas, instead of just having an increased chance for a new move or catchphrase.

- That said, all these little things make it feel more like you're managing actual people and working around problems than just fantasy booking the perfect show. I had a guy show up and ask to work for me (I was GSW and refused on grounds of him being a Technician), I had one half of my tag champs as BBW in Japan hold the belts hostage right before the show, demanding an immediate pay raise or they'd walk out (and they did walk out when I offered a half raise as compromise)... as a fan of the indy sleaze and wrestlecrap in this game, I'm delighted and can't wait to see the mess it'll generate for, say, O.G. ECW saves. I'm also excited to do diaries where it's more of a booker's log dealing with all that, rather than describing a flashy show like you'd watch it on TV.

- Speaking of bookers, you technically can play as someone with 0 booking skill and rely on your committee, but it's higly inefficient. I like it, cuts down my decision paralysis when choosing who to play as. It also helps with immersion and making the avatar feel more real instead of an immortal distant observer.

- Tying to some of my previous mentions, personalities. I love how they're now more important and provide such a vivid atmosphere. Even the negative ones I'd usually avoid, they might make for a good stooge or something. Oh and while I'm on the Inner Circle again, as a person who usually does smaller feds, often from the ground up, that head trainer position is a godsend.

All in all, things felt very odd yesterday when the beta first dropped, but I'm much more positive and excited about it today.

[AboardTheArk]

I think a lot of people have touched on the UI issues but contracts NEED to be visible in the workers tab and/or the shortlist. That feels particularly glaring because it's not even an extra click it's like 4-5 opening the company tab.

[FankuKaibutsu]

Couldn't the entire 'chain angles' mechanic work by keeping the old system, then just adding a checkbox next to the angle on the overall booking screen that means "Chain to previous angle" then set a limit of say, 30 total minutes for a chain, then calculate everything when the show runs?

And for a screen like the new angle booker, couldn't it be set up so that we could set the number of participants in the segment, set the roles involved in the segment, then save it to use later? Seems like something like that would both utilize the flexibility of the new system with the basic QOL function of being able to save commonly used settings in a form.

 

I've been playing these games since EWR, and whatever the process has been for reviewing UI changes needs to be strongly looked at and revised. There are so many inefficient and unnecessarily complicated aspects to the user experience in this edition and 2020 that should not have made it past the review and feedback stage of designing.
 

[Callum07]

1 hour ago, Astil said:

There is! Thats what I've been trying to say. Both of those are in the game.

Am I missing something, my screen looks different to yours

[samibalor]

1 minute ago, Callum07 said:

Am I missing something, my screen looks different to yours

You should click the "Quick Add Angle" button

[Bartring]

36 minutes ago, Astil said:

On the Workers screen? Pretty sure that was in 2020.

 

Unless you could change it in a setting I don't know about, using arrow keys on the Workers screen in 2020 just scrolled the list down.

So if you clicked on Aaron Andrews and pressed the down arrow, the list would scroll down, but you would still have Aaron Andrews selected. In 9, if you click Aaron Andrews and press the down arrow, it moves to Aaron Knight.

[Astil]

17 minutes ago, FankuKaibutsu said:

And for a screen like the new angle booker, couldn't it be set up so that we could set the number of participants in the segment, set the roles involved in the segment, then save it to use later? 
 

That is quick add angle. Only difference is  it is pre set ones instead of user defined.

 

I will say to me the way you proposed chaining angles sounds way more complicated than doing it in an angle screen where you can maintain workers and roles to different parts.

[magik]

19 minutes ago, FankuKaibutsu said:

Couldn't the entire 'chain angles' mechanic work by keeping the old system, then just adding a checkbox next to the angle on the overall booking screen that means "Chain to previous angle" then set a limit of say, 30 total minutes for a chain, then calculate everything when the show runs?

And for a screen like the new angle booker, couldn't it be set up so that we could set the number of participants in the segment, set the roles involved in the segment, then save it to use later? Seems like something like that would both utilize the flexibility of the new system with the basic QOL function of being able to save commonly used settings in a form.

 

I've been playing these games since EWR, and whatever the process has been for reviewing UI changes needs to be strongly looked at and revised. There are so many inefficient and unnecessarily complicated aspects to the user experience in this edition and 2020 that should not have made it past the review and feedback stage of designing.
 

Thoughts on these suggestions?

 

 

[dannydevia2]

Downloaded the game and spent a day playing it. Been mostly playing TEW2016 as I couldn't get into TEW2020 but for TEW9 personally I liked the new UI. 2020 was a bit overwhelming for me, but 9 seems a lot more cleaner, yeah there's more clicking involved but I don't really mind that.

[JackH2020]

2 hours ago, D.W. said:

Spent a few more hours this morning and I'm sure I'll buy it eventually, but it's not going to be a day-one purchase like it usually is. Honestly, it's going to take me forever just to add the new heights, weights, geo tags, dates anyway, so I'm not in a rush.

This really doesn't feel like a new game so much as a patch for TEW2020. It's an odd mix of useful quality-of-life stuff but with a trade-off of weird additions/omissions. I've been playing and modding these games for the better part of 20 years now, so I've gotten fairly used to having to force it to operate how I want. It's really the little things that make-or-break the experience for me at this point. The past few releases have demonstrated to me that the way I want to use TEW is in opposition to how it's being designed. I want control over everything and it feels like more and more of that is being taken away from the user.

Also, I just really don't like how the AI operates and I know that's not just something that can be easily changed. I'm sure many would argue it doesn't need to be. I don't want it to try to "fix" the world I made to be more ideal. I want it to work with what it's been given.

The world doesn't feel more alive to me with so much going on. It makes it far less immersive, if anything. Some small indy that only runs one show every 4-5 weeks shouldn't have multiple backstage fights every month. When are those people even seeing each other? Why was the relationship frequency setting removed? Why are wrestlers with neutral or even positive personalities getting in fights and walking out of indy promotions? What is the actual logic that the AI uses for stable management? Because the "integral" setting doesn't seem to do much to protect them from getting disbanded. I know I keep repeating myself, but I never see anyone else talk about this.

God, I feel like one of those people that spends 9000 hours on a Steam game and then leaves a negative review.

" the way I want to use TEW is in opposition to how it's being designed"  Having put a fair bit of time into it today I really wish I didn't agree with this statement so much. I am really struggling to find that flow state right now with this edition despite being in favour of so many of the changes, however i just cant quite click with a few of the changes, biggest of all being the angles.

I've also just read though that great post by DarK_RaideR and am determined to try and get to that point, right now I feel stuck somewhere between those 2 posts. Up until dropping it a couple years ago I have literally tens of thousands of hours in fooball management games dating back from premier manager 98 on the ps1 to the Champ Man/FM series and had a very particular way I liked to play those games that I was pretty much always able to recreate thanks to interface options.

I don't even know what my overall point here is, maybe its not you its me. I just clicked so strongly with 2020 and am lamenting not being able to interface with the game in some of the same ways yet love some of the new changes. I'm willing to keep trying to get the that point of DarK_RaideR's  post and totally appreciate that significant changes have been made I just don't know where I strand right now.

[DarK_RaideR]

5 minutes ago, JackH2020 said:

I don't even know what my overall point here is, maybe its not you its me. I just clicked so strongly with 2020 and am lamenting not being able to interface with the game in some of the same ways yet love some of the new changes. I'm willing to keep trying to get the that point of DarK_RaideR's  post and totally appreciate that significant changes have been made I just don't know where I strand right now.

Glad people read and resonated with that post, I always doubt myself when making longer ones, I think people will just TL;DR it and leave me screaming into the void.

I haven't been in that flow state you described since TEW16, but I made 2020 work for me and so far the same is happening with the IX demo. Think you hit the nail on the head there tho, it's not the game, it's me. Back then I had much more time and less worries, thus more free brainpower to devote to the game. As a person for whom diary writing is a necessary part of the game experience, it was a demanding hobby.

I feel like a lot of us are still going through the shock of first contact and blaming the game for not being what we wanted or expected it to be. Can't please everyone and like I said, in time the community will improve the experience with mods, portraits, logos, skins etc. Right now I see it kinda like learning a new instrument: might feel awkward to hold and learning the drills is boring, but you gotta go through that stage before you can start jamming.

[EdJames]

On 7/27/2024 at 6:38 PM, hollywoodshinebox said:

Yeah, Ernest Youngman looks like Usyk lmao.

I think I'm more sad about the part were unless you pay for midjourney it's really really hard to make this style of renders without looking absolute s**t.

The good news is, in only 24 hours, people have managed to get similar results from Bing

[Jaysounder]

Would it be possible to re-add the name recognition for tag-teams and stables to the auto-name feature on angles from 2020? I won't lie, I'm a lazy booker and don't particularly care about angle names unless it is a PPV/Event. Booking SWF and putting Atom Smasher, cutting a promo, and Bear Bekowski, intimidation, in an auto name angled outputs 'Promo with Smasher'. I think it should at least read 'Promo (or angle) with The DomiNation'.

[SomeDude03]

13 hours ago, EdJames said:

Funakoshi is one of those redone in the Day One Update I’ve built, and that release definitely addresses some of the disconnect between stats and portraits around attractiveness, physique and general appearance.

Sorry for just seeing this, is this Day One Update out somewhere? The new Betas seem to be using the same pictures.

[EdJames]

1 minute ago, SomeDude03 said:

Sorry for just seeing this, is this Day One Update out somewhere? The new Betas seem to be using the same pictures.

Nope. I’m going to need a while to get it all in the right format and, given the backlash this far, am going to want to get it all as damned near perfect before releasing.

[JackH2020]

24 minutes ago, DarK_RaideR said:

Glad people read and resonated with that post, I always doubt myself when making longer ones, I think people will just TL;DR it and leave me screaming into the void.

I haven't been in that flow state you described since TEW16, but I made 2020 work for me and so far the same is happening with the IX demo. Think you hit the nail on the head there tho, it's not the game, it's me. Back then I had much more time and less worries, thus more free brainpower to devote to the game. As a person for whom diary writing is a necessary part of the game experience, it was a demanding hobby.

I feel like a lot of us are still going through the shock of first contact and blaming the game for not being what we wanted or expected it to be. Can't please everyone and like I said, in time the community will improve the experience with mods, portraits, logos, skins etc. Right now I see it kinda like learning a new instrument: might feel awkward to hold and learning the drills is boring, but you gotta go through that stage before you can start jamming.

Ok at risk of turning this into a serious love in, NO YOU hit the nail on the head with this post in so many ways! First off i am absolutely that person who writes a couple paragraphs and then finds themselves in a bit of a corner and just abandons the whole thing and would have done that with my previous post most likely if not for being a couple beers deep right now aha!

Seriously though what you said made me totally willing to stick with this version a bit longer and try and get there, maybe a trip to Wigan is needed and reduce that bit I'm struggling with to the bare minimum and see if I can build up that appreciation for the changes rather than feeling the frustion of not immeadiately being able to click into high gear.

Oh man that diary comment has also sent me down a 10+ yeat memory of doing my own diary posts on teh dugout forums for my FM games! Can totally relate to that feeling!

[SomeDude03]

7 minutes ago, EdJames said:

Nope. I’m going to need a while to get it all in the right format and, given the backlash this far, am going to want to get it all as damned near perfect before releasing.

Completely fair! Will keep my eyes out for when it's posted! Good luck I hope everything goes well.

[magik]

My reactions to the beta:

 

I really like this new version so far. Pretty much everything I wished in a new version is in this one.

 

Positives:

- Eras Universal Settings to adjust revenue and expenses will be great to fine-tune the difficulty and adjust for historical mods.

- Inner Circle feature is a great addition. I didn't fully understand how it would change the way the game is played and from the 3-4 games I played I really like the added interactions with workers and decision-making it adds. It adds a "human interaction" layer to the game that I really like.

- I prefer the AI renders to the previous ones. These seem easier to create, share and get new alts for workers. Ethically I do dislike AI. Especially regarding personal data or when it is used in a way that could have an impact on someone's life (health, insurance, finance, government decision-making, etc.). For these, that's not the case so whatever looks better, is time efficient or is cost efficient Seems good to me. There's always the option to use previous renders by installing a picture pack.

- Celebrities

 

Mixed:

- The angle booking screen is indeed more complicated. I think that's something that could be revised eventually in a patch.

- I'm not a fan of the new worker screens (Status, Skills, Popularity, Attributes, Recent News) and their order. I think that's something that could be revised eventually in a patch.

- New gender options. I see how some may like these. I totally don't. I'll always adjust my eras to disable that "Cisgender" thing. I didn't even know that the word existed. I hate everything related to that. Thank god it can be disabled.

 

Cons:

- None.

 

I have been playing since EWR 2.0, EWR 3.0 and EWR 4.

 

I Bought TEW 2004, TEW 2005, TEW 2008, TEW 2010, TEW 2016, TEW 2020 and I'll for sure buy this one.

[xxerikxx]

I have only had tv-show, but still getting warning for Pay-per-view overuse...

[magik]

1 minute ago, xxerikxx said:

I have only had tv-show, but still getting warning for Pay-per-view overuse...

It may be an error worth reporting (maybe it's only the message wording?).

[Astil]

Does the mod have TV set as weekly PPV? 

Also might be better for small questions?

[xxerikxx]

 

[Atticus]

2 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

- On angles, I do appreciate the new options being based on what a wrestler is actually doing, as opposed to the previous game's batch of choices, which felt like more of an indication of what a worker would be rated on (again, this might be familiarity bias). New version feels more descriptive than gamey, which to me is a plus.

This pretty much exactly why I prefer this new angle system more. I do get why some people think it is overwhelming or cumbersome, but I hated doing premade angles, so I'd always freestyle them and then I'd just get so lazy with them because they were really game-y. Makes the game feel a lot more alive imo with being able to do different parts and people having actual roles in these now. Now I can have Triple H cut a 40 minute promo on Kane in part 1, copy over part 1, change it to Kane attacking Triple H and boom, I'm onto the next thing. Like you said, I think it's a thing where people are gonna need a lot more time and reps to get into the flow of it.

At the risk of sounding like a paid poster shill, I just haven't really come across anything that I overly dislike in IX so far. Maybe 3 months from now after some RW mods come out and I've really sunk myself into a save I'll feel differently. Loved 2016, couldn't get into 2020 at all, tried many saves and mods, but always wound up going back to 2016. And even though this is built off the back of 2020, it just feels better? Don't really know how to explain it.

[alpha2117]

53 minutes ago, magik said:

- New gender options. I see how some may like these. I totally don't. I'll always adjust my eras to disable that "Cisgender" thing. I didn't even know that the word existed. I hate everything related to that. Thank god it can be disabled.

 

With cisgender it just means your mental and physical states correspond to what they were at birth.  In Latin it means "on this side of"  where trans means "across, beyond, so as to change", trans gets used in a lot of words to mean that but cis tends not too be as its usually pretty redundant, everyone has probably heard of transcontinental travel but few people use ciscontinental to refer to travel within a continent.   You tend to see cis used mainly in scientific or medical terms like a cisplatin is a drug that contains platinum  ( which hopefully you never need to encounter as its a cancer treatment). 

The game tries to replicate the real wrestling world as well as it can and trans workers exist, two of the biggest companies in the US feature trans workers and a few Exoticos in Mexico are trans and at least one high profile Joshi worker.  It makes sense for it to be in game.  The world's views on things like that change and evolve over time and it can be difficult to adjust.  For me I worked in a job for many  years that was located near an area with a lot of that sort of diversity so just see it as pretty normal but not everyone gets that sort of exposure.

If you don't feel comfortable with that stuff then like you said turning it off is an option which is good.  Honestly though if you are playing the Cverse there is exactly 1 transwoman and she is off in the relative obscurity of NZ so for most people its probably never going to even be a factor in your game..  

 

Edited July 29 by alpha2117

[Bobby Brown]

love it so far.
but is there a chance to get an option to switch height and weight to cm and kg?
🙃