Tips to improve your game

[alpha2117]

I thought I would start a thread for any tips people have that you feel improve your company or workers that other people may not have figured out.

Mine is:  You have 1hr of pre show.  You have a roster many of whom probably need to improve skills.  Use that 1hr in various angles backstage to try to improve peoples skills.  Just like they do at say the WWE Performance Centre have people practice cutting promos, being interviewed etc.  Those sort of skills like the in ring skills can improve the more workers do them (depending on the peoples caps) and using that free hour to get people the experience at that stuff saves you tanking in show angles with workers who cant really cut promos etc. 

It also is excellent for building up the skills and experience together of secondary broadcast teams. 

 

 

[Shooltra]

The first thing I would suggest is the Crowd level. Angles need to be 5 minutes long to get the crowd hotter and when you hit White Hot, that's when you get a bonus for the angle from what I've seen. So, if you want a big match to work, the ideal would be to do a match to Calm The Crowd, Angle, Angle ( Matches can also raise the crowd ) and then, hit your big match with an All Out aim. Afterward, the crowd will only be Very Hot and I don't know how to get it hotter. Work The Crowd will also improve the rating of the match if you start your show with this.

Another thing to remember for ratings is that your show should have misses. For example, my Calm The Crowd can be used to have two unimportant workers have a match together. It helps you to push someone and makes your main-event. Ideally, if you have 3 great angles and 3 great matches, you don't need much more. Especially with the Real World mod that I'm sure a lot awaits and AEW and WWE having multiple shows, that's something to remember. You don't need a show with all of your Major Stars. Spread it and your whole company will be better off now and in the future as you give spots to wrestlers who can use the exposure.

In the same realm, not every wrestler should be a wrestler who is super popular, can work great and can cut the best promos. You need a lot of roles in your company, which include gatekeepers who have to lose. Look at who carries matches, who shines on the mic, who has a character you can work with, who can get popularity by squashing local workers. This will give your company depth and make you appreciate workers who seem useless.

 

[BrokenCycle]

I think people should limit test constantly to see what they're able to get away with. You don't need to put on incredible main events every week-- you can have an alright to good show with a Main Eventer beating up a Midcarder, or two good Midcard talents going at it, even, as your main events on TV. Constantly punting a show to save your big stuff really limits burnout, in my opinion, because you don't have to think about big stuff for every show.

[beemer]

4 hours ago, Shooltra said:

The first thing I would suggest is the Crowd level. Angles need to be 5 minutes long to get the crowd hotter and when you hit White Hot, that's when you get a bonus for the angle from what I've seen. So, if you want a big match to work, the ideal would be to do a match to Calm The Crowd, Angle, Angle ( Matches can also raise the crowd ) and then, hit your big match with an All Out aim. Afterward, the crowd will only be Very Hot and I don't know how to get it hotter. Work The Crowd will also improve the rating of the match if you start your show with this.

Another thing to remember for ratings is that your show should have misses. For example, my Calm The Crowd can be used to have two unimportant workers have a match together. It helps you to push someone and makes your main-event. Ideally, if you have 3 great angles and 3 great matches, you don't need much more. Especially with the Real World mod that I'm sure a lot awaits and AEW and WWE having multiple shows, that's something to remember. You don't need a show with all of your Major Stars. Spread it and your whole company will be better off now and in the future as you give spots to wrestlers who can use the exposure.

In the same realm, not every wrestler should be a wrestler who is super popular, can work great and can cut the best promos. You need a lot of roles in your company, which include gatekeepers who have to lose. Look at who carries matches, who shines on the mic, who has a character you can work with, who can get popularity by squashing local workers. This will give your company depth and make you appreciate workers who seem useless.

 

I noticed that the overall rating of your show is highly dependent on how your main event fares.

Pre and Post show aside, how many poorly rated matches / angles can you have on your card if you have three good angles, two good matches + a good main event?

I'm assuming it's proportional - i.e. a ton of terrible matches / angles will bring the overall rating down more than one terrible match?

[VBigB]

1 hour ago, beemer said:

I noticed that the overall rating of your show is highly dependent on how your main event fares.

That’s going to depend on the match focus setting of the product with Regular Focus meaning 70% is taken from the main event. If you want the main event to have less of an effect change the focus to Three Ring Circus or Ensemble. Section 17.4 of the handbook. There are similar settings for angle focus.

[chm39]

10 hours ago, alpha2117 said:

I thought I would start a thread for any tips people have that you feel improve your company or workers that other people may not have figured out.

Mine is:  You have 1hr of pre show.  You have a roster many of whom probably need to improve skills.  Use that 1hr in various angles backstage to try to improve peoples skills.  Just like they do at say the WWE Performance Centre have people practice cutting promos, being interviewed etc.  Those sort of skills like the in ring skills can improve the more workers do them (depending on the peoples caps) and using that free hour to get people the experience at that stuff saves you tanking in show angles with workers who cant really cut promos etc. 

It also is excellent for building up the skills and experience together of secondary broadcast teams. 

 

 

Are you putting everyone you want to get practice for in a 60 minute angle in the Pre Show?

[alpha2117]

8 minutes ago, chm39 said:

Are you putting everyone you want to get practice for in a 60 minute angle in the Pre Show?

No all you need to do is run say 12 5 minute angles set to pre show and backstage.  So say have 4 people cut promos and do it 12 times for various people on your roster.  Mix around the broadcasters if you have back ups for those too.  The ratings for the segments dont matter but the more people practice the more they potentially improve.   Doing angles in show with people who aren't good at speaking can be soul destroying but working with them pre show offers the potential of improvement.  Obviously if you are on a per show basis and limited funds you would only do it with workers you are using in the show proper

[sking1123]

Does doing that many of the same angle on the preshow kill any chance you'd have at getting the 'show had multiple angles' bonus? Or does it not matter since it's the preshow?

[alpha2117]

Just now, sking1123 said:

Does doing that many of the same angle on the preshow kill any chance you'd have at getting the 'show had multiple angles' bonus? Or does it not matter since it's the preshow?

Pre show has no effect on the show proper - also you can literally choose different styles for each one, Generic, Serious, Comedy etc which if they were in show would make them different even with the same basic set-up.

[hollywoodshinebox]

Any tips on how to do a spreadsheet for booking that keeps everything easy? That's my main problem when playing these games. Things end up seeming too complex and difficult to plan.

[Llaneroo]

16 hours ago, beemer said:

I noticed that the overall rating of your show is highly dependent on how your main event fares.

Pre and Post show aside, how many poorly rated matches / angles can you have on your card if you have three good angles, two good matches + a good main event?

I'm assuming it's proportional - i.e. a ton of terrible matches / angles will bring the overall rating down more than one terrible match?

Chapter 17.4 of the Player's Handbook explain everything.

[VBigB]

7 hours ago, hollywoodshinebox said:

Any tips on how to do a spreadsheet for booking that keeps everything easy? That's my main problem when playing these games. Things end up seeming too complex and difficult to plan.

Well I don't do a lot of planning but I do keep a cheat sheet which is enough for my purposes. I mainly use columns A through E. What's shown is my active wrestler tab. I have a separate tab for out of ring workers. About once a month I'll sort it alphabetically so it matches the in game roster screen and update Perc. (perception). The Perf (performance) was where I would quickly write down the top performance score in each match to select who to give post show speeches for after events. But that has morphed into tracking unavailable workers (i=injured; r=rehab; iw=injured but can work angles; etc). I tend to make sure I use everyone at least once every other show so the "Not Used" is just where I put a tick to ensure I schedule that worker for the next show. The text in brackets next to the workers name is the title holders (w=world; s=shockwave; tt=tag title). I used to highlight workers that were in the same stable with the same color but I currently have too many stables and it became visually unappealing. The SA (sex appeal) column is just a leftover from running eye candy feds...doesn't really apply to QAW and I should probably replace it with star quality. I only have three other columns not shown: Gimmick Name; Brand (so I can filter per brand if I have done a brand split); Manager.

I have a separate tab where I list all my active tag teams for quick reference. I do copy some of the info from creative meeting screen into a tab for quick reference (Next Big Things; Hot Prospects; Talk the Talk; Show Stopper; Ring Generals). I use to have a tab where I tracked chemistry but found I wasn't really using it so I no longer update it.

Anyway that's about it. I have the columns sized such that on a 1080p monitor I can keep the columns I use the most on screen beside the game at all times. There definitely are better spreadsheets out there but this is good enough for me.

Edit: Man my grammar was atrocious in this post.

 

Edited September 21 by VBigB

[MikeSc]

I run a Won/Lost spreadsheet that lets me balance momentum out.  I can keep the entire Recognisable and above at White Hot without the character ideas.

 

[DarK_RaideR]

I can't find it now, but there's a thread where someone has already made a pretty good spreadsheet to track everything and plan your booking. Should be in this subforum.

[Boltinho]

https://forum.greydogsoftware.com/topic/57748-tew-booking-tracker-ix-edition/

 

 

[alpha2117]

2 hours ago, Boltinho said:

https://forum.greydogsoftware.com/topic/57748-tew-booking-tracker-ix-edition/

 

 

I'm happy that people are doing things like sharing that spreadsheet link because thats why I started this thread - over time people pick up resources like that or tricks and techniques that either make doing stuff easier like that spreadsheet or work out ways of getting better results (like using the pre-show as a training ground).  Thanks for that link I'm sure that will help some people out a lot.

[xjman329]

54 minutes ago, alpha2117 said:

I'm happy that people are doing things like sharing that spreadsheet link because thats why I started this thread - over time people pick up resources like that or tricks and techniques that either make doing stuff easier like that spreadsheet or work out ways of getting better results (like using the pre-show as a training ground).  Thanks for that link I'm sure that will help some people out a lot.

Agreed, have been following this thread and will use a lot of the things you guys have talked about.

[hollywoodshinebox]

That spreadsheet seems pretty good, but i was asking more about booking wise.

I did try a spreadsheet where i had did put my show cards with segments by week until the ppv and booked leading to the ppv card, but it got really hard to plan things and took so much time.

[MikeSc]

The bottom line is that it takes a lot of time and organization to even run a spreadsheet or two given all of the back and forth stuff.

[alpha2117]

3 hours ago, hollywoodshinebox said:

That spreadsheet seems pretty good, but i was asking more about booking wise.

I did try a spreadsheet where i had did put my show cards with segments by week until the ppv and booked leading to the ppv card, but it got really hard to plan things and took so much time.

One thing I would say is factions/stables are your friend.  It's so much easier to keep track of things booking wise if people are in stables.  Having two factions of say 5 workers each offers a lot of possible combinations but those combos are a lot easier to keep track of in your head.  You say have 2 tag matches and one singles match every show or 1 tag and 3 singles and can cycle through combos.  I've got a stupidly bloated roster in my current save but it's not too hard to keep track of feuds and that because each set of factional warfare has their own set of matches that dont necessarily interact with any other feud.   One of the reasons that Bloodline storyline is still going in the WWE is that from both a booking standpoint and as a viewer you can sort of follow it even if you miss shows.  They cycle people in and out but it has a structure which makes it easier to understand.  They literally replaced the entire original faction with new guys just like Bullet Club did in New Japan but the structure of the story still works.  

[beemer]

I use my Storylines as a cheat sheet for remembering who I want to match up. With enough storylines, I can always get about 50% of them solidly in any card.

And I can use them as "programs" (i.e. when a vet wrestler does a very weak storyline stint with a rookie for the purpose of getting the rookie good in-ring experience).

I don't know if that becomes more difficult when you're in feds with more responsibility, insignificant does have some advantages.

[paulskln]

I don't use a spreadsheet, I use a fixture generator, put all my workers in it, then copy and paste into a text document.... depending on the size of my company....I create my shows around the fixtures....my current save , I am very small and to make money I mix up 4 workers , so a tag match, three way , four way, and two singles matches...and if my save needs angles pop some in too.....I then juggle the length of matches depenging on the booking sheet...i.e....workers being used to much , I lower the match length...

[chm39]

On 9/22/2024 at 9:17 AM, beemer said:

I use my Storylines as a cheat sheet for remembering who I want to match up. With enough storylines, I can always get about 50% of them solidly in any card.

And I can use them as "programs" (i.e. when a vet wrestler does a very weak storyline stint with a rookie for the purpose of getting the rookie good in-ring experience).

I don't know if that becomes more difficult when you're in feds with more responsibility, insignificant does have some advantages.

This sounds like what I do. I start plotting what I want for my main event storylines through the show. After that I go down the line of storylines advancing them. 

[MikeSc]

One thing I do whenever the money is there is make sure I have Recognisable and Well Known workers who are not on the main card doing something that was suggested for microphone stuff.

Use a bunch of 6-man tags pre-show to pair up experienced workers with young workers to improve their skills.  That way those Unimportant workers who aren't putting somebody over on the card can still get their reps in and be better for when they do get on TV.  And in the case of people with high SQ and low skills this can really help smooth out when they do hit the midcard.

[Goliathus]

There's also 30 minutes for post-show that you can do the same "practicing" as the 60 minutes pre-show if one wants to do so. So that's 90 minutes of free practice per show. You can also spend these time on matches instead of promo if you want to improve worker's in-ring skills.

Edited September 25 by Goliathus