Small rosters: penalty for being repetitive?

[Anubis]

I'm playing 5SSW right now, and near the end of my first month, I'm down $45,000 (haven't finished the month for sponsor money yet). Thing is, while I've love to just use top people, my small roster and the expenses of some workers kinda holds me back. I am still on the touring schedule at the moment, but I am curious. Since I run three shows a week and all, is the product gonna get repetitive? Would that cause a penalty? Because with the small roster and a strong face/heel divide (meaning no heel versus heel matches would fly), there's no way to keep the pairings fresh. Now since I have no television or PPV deal, is it okay to run the same matches in multiple places? I know that's how the old NWA did it back in the territory days, but I'm not sure if it'd work in TEW2007. I just don't want matches to bomb because I have the same two workers wrestle several times in a row in the same week. EDIT: Okay, I just got my sponsor money, and it doesn't even come close to covering the costs. Even the written contracts I started with alone eat up [i]all[/i] the sponsor money. How the bloody Hell am I supposed to fulfill my CRITICAL goal of having at least $275,000?! That would require making a $55,000 profit when I'm losing over $50,000 every month! I get $13,000 from my sponsors, and the written contracts alone cost $21,000! Even with the cheap PPA workers (they cost less than $1000 each) and only running one-hour-long shows (which gets complaints from people because I don't use them enough), I can't turn a profit.

[Craig Edwards]

You might want to get even cheater guys, like ones that work for 100-200 bucks a show they might not be as good and you shows ratings might drop but they are alot cheaper plus i would use your written contact guys alot more as you can use those guys every show and it would be cheaper.

[Anubis]

[QUOTE=Craig Edwards;179938]You might want to get even cheater guys, like ones that work for 100-200 bucks a show they might not be as good and you shows ratings might drop but they are alot cheaper plus i would use your written contact guys alot more as you can use those guys every show and it would be cheaper.[/QUOTE] I do use my written contract people every show, and I'd be hard pressed to find cheaper talent than the ones I have which cost only $350 per appaearance (although a couple cost up to around $1000). There are not too many women capable of competing in 5SSW, and I doubt any of them are only $200 per appearance . . . Anyway, it gets worse. For some reason, even my people with an A in Stamina (i.e. Sensational Ogiwara) are "visibly tiring" toward the end of an 18 minute match, which strikes me as extremely unrealistic given that in reality, excellent 30-60 minute matches are fairly common in the indies. Maybe Stamina needs tweaking to not be so strict? My financials at the end of the month ain't pretty. Lost over $60,000 by the end of the tour. Now I have two months where my written contracts drain my money without getting used [i]and[/i] I see no way to make a profit without slumping to having only one show per month (which also seems a bit unreliastic for a Regional promotion like 5SSW. How is this promotion supposed to be playable? I don't get it. My card ratings are high for this promotion (C- to B- usually), and what's worse, the crowd seems to crap on any match that I've booked within the last few weeks (Crusher and Ogiwara just got a C when their previous matches garnered at least a B-, and they have "great chemistry" even, and I got no notes about being off that night). I also got less than half the "expected" fan turnout for my final event of the month, which meant far less ticket sales . . . I need help! I can't figure out how to book this thing!

[juggaloninjalee]

A 1 hour show means you can do 3-4 matches. 1 to 2 angles. Now try to do 2 shows a week and only use talent on written contracts. Use your worst worker who happens to be on a PPA contract against your best skilled written worker in dark matches and then also on the card. It will make them tired physically but it may help you turn a profit. When I am suffering by losing money I just shy away from as many top PPA workers and use all of my written workers more and more. Sometimes I do tournaments with my written workers on a show so I can recycle them and justify it.

[Anubis]

But I only have three written workers, Sensational Ogiwara, Thunder Hike, and Crusher Ichihara. I can't just put the three of them against each other multiple times in the same show over multiple shows . . . And the promotion is too small to actually hire other workers to written contracts so far . . . Also, it takes at least six matches to fill the hour, since they crap all over angles even when featuring the best entertainer on the roster (Thunder Hike), and the A Stamina workers get tired after only 15 minute matches, and I have to have even shorter matches for the lower people . . . This is 5SSW in the CornellVerse I'm playing.

[Remianen]

Anubis, no offense but you're puttin' way too much on it. I'm very familiar with 5SSW and I can tell you, you're not approaching it the right way. First off, until the official 1.2 patch comes out, you can't tour them and expect to make money. Your costs will far outstrip your revenues. Secondly, you have an extremely myopic view of what is really an excellent roster. What I did was, first day, I signed Shiori Jippensha. She can feud with Yuma Maruya over the All-Asian title. If you have Megumi Nakajima as a face, pair her with someone else in the midcard (I chose Joanne Rodriguez) and have them feud with All Business over the tag titles. Your main event scene is chock full of talent, none of whom would make for an overly repetitive storyline, whether it be formalized or just having a series of matches. Let's see, on the face side you have Sensational Ogiwara, Thunder Hike, and Kit Hatoyama and for heels you have Crusher Ichihara, June Butler (not quite as talented but...), and Saeko Hiroyuki can be elevated (she has the skills). If you want, turn Kit heel and elevate Kiko Sakakibara (who also has the skills) to replace her on the face side. It'll take some time before you turn a notable profit (especially if you sign Alicia Strong upon her debut) but it's not that bad. I haven't gotten any notices of repetitiveness as far as negative reactions from the crowd. I put the World title on Kit and she's been feuding with Crusher Ichihara, June Butler, and Namiyo Muro. I put the tag titles on Megumi & J-Ro due to the abundance of heel tag teams (and the dearth of face tag teams since in my game, Kiko & Otsune Tsumura have 'awful chemistry' as a team). Yuma Maruya's a main eventer, Shiori Jippensha holds the All-Asian title and is feuding with Alicia Strong and Otsune Tsumura, and all this allows me to rotate workers being used without too many complaints from anyone I actually give a crap about. (Tsuki Kawamata's complaining about lack of use? Go to hell!) With the exception of J-Ro, no one who isn't exclusive to me gets pushed. No Gorgon, no Tsuki, no one besides J.Ro (and if Kiko had 'great' chemistry with Megumi as a tag team, SHE'D be one half of the tag champions). I dunno about anyone else but the first thing I do when I start up a game, no matter what promotion I'm running, is RAISE TICKET PRICES. I have yet to get any notes about driving fans away (though I know it'll happen soon enough). I also pay attention to the minutia of the game (like, if I have 540 people expected to show for my event, do I book the smaller arena or the bigger one? Depends on how much my tickets cost and how likely it is for ALL of those 540 fans to show, largely influenced by what I have advanced booked, among other things). Run your shows in Kinki or Kanto and just maintain. As long as you gain popularity and don't lose TOO much money (which means, no 3 shows a week), you should be able to hit Cult before you run out of cash. And honestly, I have yet to be able to tire Sensational Ogiwara. She eats 30 minute matches for lunch (haven't put her in anything longer) and looks expectantly for more. In short (too late!), you're trying to keep everyone happy when IMO, you shouldn't worry about it. I have a handful of 'untouchables' that I make sure are booked as often as possible: Ogiwara, Hike, Ichihara, Kit, Megumi, Kiko, Shiori, Alicia, Yuma, Umeko Karube, J-Ro (due to her connection to Megumi), Saori Nakadan, Huntress Makiko, Otsune Tsumura. With these workers (and ONLY these workers), I can put a show together without even thinking about it. You also have decent, cheap talent available to you through the free agent market (like Tai, Karen Bilous, Kinuye Mushashibo), at least one and possibly two main event quality talents (Namiyo Muro and Seiko Nanami) and a working agreement already in place that gives you access to more workers (bring in Cherry Bomb or Michelle Brendon for a program with Umeko Karube or Kiko or Otsune). In many ways, 5SSW is 'easy mode' this time around because of the loyalty feature and its stacked roster. You don't even have to DO angles if you don't want to! The only inherent difficulty with 5SSW is staying on its touring schedule, which burns your cash crazy fast (but 1.2 is supposed to alleviate that somewhat). When you sign an Alicia Strong or Shiori Jippensha and they pop up on your roster with 'Loyal to 5SSW', that is HUGE. You're not making money because you're touring and burning it. Personally, I don't like touring schedules with promotions carrying big monthly fees in the form of writtens. But that's just me. Mind you, I'm not attacking you per se. I'm attacking your line of thinking in that this game is far different from its predecessor. You really have to approach it as a new entity altogether. Playing 5SSW in the demo, I saw what resulted from touring (lots of red ink) so I figured something might be amiss. Just because a promotion starts off as a touring one, doesn't mean that's the only course of action available to you. If Sakurako blocks you from changing their schedule, then that's a real problem. In that case, you'd pretty much have to give them more money via the editor or else there's literally nothing you can do to avert the inevitable (at least in my opinion).

[chris caulfield]

I have had the same problem with 5SSW even though in the month i put on 5 A shows and 2 A* shows and i still lost 40k but i only got A shows because i signed dragon assasin(sos if i spelt it wrong) and put her in matches against thunder hike,sensational,kit,yuma,kiko and she never fell below a B rating also saeko should be a main event heel she puts on A* matches with thunder hike and sensational hope my match ideas helped you as with those matches i got the popularity of the company up to D- throughout all of japan in a month

[Anubis]

Yeah, come February, I decided to try my luck and succeeded at snatching a television deal while Kate Avatar recovered from her Spinal Disalignment (terrible luck on the user character before the first show even). Couldn't get a PPV deal, but got on television. In March, I switched to a Normal schedule and I'm just hoping I get my popularity up enough to pay for the workers through ticket sales before my time is up on the Owner Goals. One problem is that I know nothing about the CornellVerse. I have a hard time even remembering most of the names. I know I had to downgrade to a much cheaper referee (their starts cost $1200-1500 a pop, and I hired one for $500 a pop without degrading my matches). Other than that, the roster hasn't changed much, except I hired the girl who is called "Jade Dragon" or whatever her name is. My first television show still lost $1000, but that's better than the $6000 I was losing before. Yeah, I've been trying to keep the whole roster happy, which has caused problems. I'm also looking to get rid of June Butler because she works like complete crap so far and has bogged down my ratings. chris caulfield, how in the blue blazes did you manage to book A and A* shows with 5SSW? Even my best match only rated B+, using their best two workers with "great chemistry". Did you mod something or what?

[Remianen]

[QUOTE=Anubis;180008]Yeah, come February, I decided to try my luck and succeeded at snatching a television deal while Kate Avatar recovered from her Spinal Disalignment (terrible luck on the user character before the first show even). Couldn't get a PPV deal, but got on television. In March, I switched to a Normal schedule and I'm just hoping I get my popularity up enough to pay for the workers through ticket sales before my time is up on the Owner Goals.[/QUOTE] Bingo! Flip the script! :) [QUOTE=Anubis;180008]One problem is that I know nothing about the CornellVerse. I have a hard time even remembering most of the names. I know I had to downgrade to a much cheaper referee (their starts cost $1200-1500 a pop, and I hired one for $500 a pop without degrading my matches). Other than that, the roster hasn't changed much, except I hired the girl who is called "Jade Dragon" or whatever her name is. My first television show still lost $1000, but that's better than the $6000 I was losing before.[/QUOTE] Mitsu Ariwa :) She's very good for a midcard talent. You can develop her into more but I don't really see her main eventing. Possible though! And I had forgotten that you're jumping from TEW04 to 07 (memory's kinda foggy) so yeah, that's quite a leap. 5SSW is hands down the best women's promotion in the Cornellverse. Now with loyalty, it's even better (most of your best workers are loyal to your promotion which means they're unlikely to sign anywhere else. I know Otsune Tsumura won't sign with AAA when they approach her, choosing "to remain loyal to 5SSW"). Akihiro can be fired easily, Tsugihara (or whatever his name is) is a keeper (he's one of the top 5 refs in Japan, if I remember right). [QUOTE=Anubis;180008]Yeah, I've been trying to keep the whole roster happy, which has caused problems. I'm also looking to get rid of June Butler because she works like complete crap so far and has bogged down my ratings.[/QUOTE] June is definitely a coattail rider (in this case, the coattail she's riding belongs to Crusher Ichihara). I usually use her as trade bait with NOTBPW since she comes with pretty dang good Canadian overness. Likewise, I ship Connie Morris out to AAA because she just really sucks, in my view. [QUOTE=Anubis;180008]chris caulfield, how in the blue blazes did you manage to book A and A* shows with 5SSW? Even my best match only rated B+, using their best two workers with "great chemistry". Did you mod something or what?[/QUOTE] I wasn't going to say anything about that. You can do As with 5SSW but not from the start, I don't think. I had to get to Cult before I saw my first A match (Kit Hatoyama vs Crusher Ichihara, 30 min draw). Storylines (actual formal storylines) can help push up heat and match ratings, even when you don't HAVE to run them. But color me skeptical because at the end of his post, he said he got 5SSW to D- across all of Japan in a month...... ......5SSW STARTS at D- across all of Japan (35% pop in their home country). Something doesn't add up here if you can take a Regional core Cornellverse promotion and put on A and A* matches from day one and gain ZERO popularity doing so (D is .1% more than the promotion starts with). That is, without judicious use of the editor. Seems like that would fly in the face of many of the changes made to add difficulty to the game. I'm not saying it's not possible (anything's possible) but I'd sure like to know how it was done.

[chris caulfield]

I was able to get A and A* shows coz I signed Dragon Assassin and she had some A* matches with Thuder Hike and Sensational and even an A match with Kit(who in every other match only got B+) and also saeko had A* star matches with thunder hike and sensational also i used connie morris as a jobber to yuma and J-Ro and kiko. i pushed Saori i signed nene ebina and made matches with her against yuma J-Ro and kiko which always got something in the B area i used june butler sparingly against kit and sensational and thunder hike I made sensational world champ I made kit asian champ but she then lost it to dragon assassin in an A match. my worst show (which was my first) was only B- and i had 5 A shows and 1 A* show all thanks to the above and every show i went from E popularity in that particular area to D-. be aware i did this in the demo because i have to wait for my birthday to get TEW07 dam my april birthday.

[chris caulfield]

O and wats your name remin... or whatever 5SSW starts with E+ popularity across Japan so there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i didnt say i got A* matches from the start because i had 12 shows in the month and they went like this Show 1 = B- Show 2 = B Show 3 = B Show 4 = A Show 5 = A Show 6 = B+ Show 7 = A Show 8 = B Show 9 = A Show 10 = B+ Show 11 = A* Show 12 = A

[Rey619]

I so regret not including Japan in my game now... but I'm enjoying AAA too much as it is to start over again..

[Remianen]

[QUOTE=chris caulfield;180064]O and wats your name remin... or whatever 5SSW starts with E+ popularity across Japan so there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/QUOTE] You're absolutely right, I was mistaken. 35.0 is E+, 35.1 is D-. However, the fact remains, you put on A and A* shows with E+ popularity and only break D- pop? Excuse me for being just a little suspicious. I'm sure I'm not the only person wondering how that can be possible. But at worst, it gives me something to aspire to.

[chris caulfield]

Well i didnt want to seem rude Remin but i only had 12 shows and 1 in each region leaves 4 left and the 4 left were the B- sow and the couple of B's so i came very close to breaking the D barrier but im being serious I had an A* match nearly every show after my 2nd A show mainly because of the brilliance of dragon assassin(until she became asian champ) saeko jobbing to thunder hike and sensational and sometimes kit and also some crusher vs thunder hike matches were good the best being 25min double DQ finish which got an A* and again yuma J-Ro kiko connie and saori all pulled out B area matches.I had both singles championships defended in every show mainly because all my tag matches had C+ ratings or less.

[Anubis]

Hahaha, well, I tried to make a trade to NOTBPW, but they complain about me not asking for an equal trade, no matter who I try to pick of their useful people. So I ended up trading to BSC for Alexis Lee Littlefeather and Nurse Darla Knight. :D Suffice it to say, I love the workers who cost only $100, especially since Kate Avatar, Ogiwara, Yuma, and Thunder Hike can still pull good matches out of them. Meanwhile, Connie Morris and June Butler jobbed in a BSC show. "Dharma Gregg defeated June Butler to retain the BSC Queen Of The Ring title." :D Just curious, though, how am I gonna keep Ogiwara, Crusher, and Thunder Hike on written contracts once they're up? So far, I can't even get "loyal" workers on written contracts because the promotion is too small. I think you need at least National to pull off written contracts, unfortunately. Once they're up, there's no way I'll be able to afford those three on PPA . . .

[Rey619]

[QUOTE=Anubis;180652]Just curious, though, how am I gonna keep Ogiwara, Crusher, and Thunder Hike on written contracts once they're up? So far, I can't even get "loyal" workers on written contracts because the promotion is too small. I think you need at least National to pull off written contracts, unfortunately. Once they're up, there's no way I'll be able to afford those three on PPA . . .[/QUOTE] I have the same problem in AAA with Catherine Quine. Or.. problem? She has 4000 a month, so signing her to a PPA is probably gonna save me like 20,000 a year.

[Remianen]

[QUOTE=Anubis;180652]Just curious, though, how am I gonna keep Ogiwara, Crusher, and Thunder Hike on written contracts once they're up? So far, I can't even get "loyal" workers on written contracts because the promotion is too small. I think you need at least National to pull off written contracts, unfortunately. Once they're up, there's no way I'll be able to afford those three on PPA . . .[/QUOTE] Simple answer? You won't be able to keep 'em. That's how I got those three in 05. Their contracts expired and they re-signed to PPAs so as soon as I hit National, I stole 'em. Your only hope is hitting National before those contracts expire (or, conversely, hoping no one in Japan bothers to sign them. Possible for Crusher but Ogiwara and Hike are too good and would fit the other promotions too well for them to ignore, I'd think). As for Rey, Cathering usually gets scooped up by SWF or TCW. Possibly NOTBPW but I doubt it (they only like to pay injury prone Super Juniors top dollar *cough*).

[Anubis]

[QUOTE=Remianen;180738]Simple answer? You won't be able to keep 'em. That's how I got those three in 05. Their contracts expired and they re-signed to PPAs so as soon as I hit National, I stole 'em. Your only hope is hitting National before those contracts expire (or, conversely, hoping no one in Japan bothers to sign them. Possible for Crusher but Ogiwara and Hike are too good and would fit the other promotions too well for them to ignore, I'd think). As for Rey, Cathering usually gets scooped up by SWF or TCW. Possibly NOTBPW but I doubt it (they only like to pay injury prone Super Juniors top dollar *cough*).[/QUOTE] Thing is, those three all have loyalty to 5SSW IIRC. So doesn't that make it unlikely that they'll be stolen? Without them, I'm gonna be up a creek for sure! Hi there, Rey619. Sorry I didn't say anything to you in the other thread, didn't wanna hijack it. Good to see you out and about, man. This game rocks.

[Remianen]

[QUOTE=Anubis;181048]Thing is, those three all have loyalty to 5SSW IIRC. So doesn't that make it unlikely that they'll be stolen? Without them, I'm gonna be up a creek for sure! Hi there, Rey619. Sorry I didn't say anything to you in the other thread, didn't wanna hijack it. Good to see you out and about, man. This game rocks.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that's something that didn't exist in 05. I had totally forgotten about it. I've been testing the bejeezus out of loyalty and you know what? You're absolutely right. NO ONE can steal those three from you, I don't think. I haven't yet seen anyone break through the loyalty barrier just as I haven't seen anyone break through the 'freelance' barrier. So your only problem will be being able to afford their PPA fees. I imagine Sensational Ogiwara's PPA fee would wind up being pretty onerous.

[Anubis]

I am having some serious morale issues at this point because I have a full roster plus some (so I can mix it up a little) and don't use them enough. Thing is, a lot of my people higher on the card cost $1000 per show, so I only use them like once a month. I barely have three or four matches per show now, and I try to use the cheaper $350 per show workers (which are my lower card workers) by putting them with Ogiwara, Thunder Hike, Kate Avatar, and Crusher. Is there any way to keep morale under control? I run two shows a week (one television and one event, the event being my "money making" one hour show I only usually use champions and written contract people on, ignoring everyone else; this actually makes money to offset the huge losses from the big monthly event and the television shows) plus the monthly blowoff event (trying to get enough popularity for a PPV deal). I honestly see no way to actually [i]make[/i] money with this promotion whatsoever. I'm still bleeding money like nobody's business, even with the show that offsets the losses on the other show.

[Remianen]

Wait, you mean neither J-Remote nor Jade will talk to you about a PPV deal? Besides that, I don't know what to tell you. Once I take 5SSW off the touring schedule, I run them the same as I would any other regional or smaller promotion. I don't worry about morale because, quite frankly, the only people who really deserve to be used on every show, are those people on writtens (in my view). Everyone else gets used on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Sure, I try to use my favorites as often as I can but that doesn't stop me from keeping business at the forefront. I also check at the beginning of the game to see if anyone can be had for a cheaper price than they're currently working for (renegotiating to check the climate, so to speak). There are usually a few who will re-up for less money than the AI assigned to them. Plus, there are always a few workers I feel can be easily replaced by cheaper versions available on the free agent market. When I sign Shiori Jippensha, Tsuki Kawamata usually gets fired to replace her. Connie Morris usually spends the first 2 months or so jobbing hardcore then she gets fired too. It just takes time to familiarize yourself with the workers available and the roles they can play. Usually when I start up a game, I know exactly who I'm signing for what role and the only wild card is chemistry (like when I wanted to push The Rainbow Girls heavily only to find that Kiko & Otsune have 'awful' chemistry as tag team partners). Plus, a lot depends on your desire to maintain some kind of 'realism' kick. I have zero qualms about a Sensational Thunder vs Destruction Inc main event for 6 months if it gets me ratings. I'll go for variety when I have the resources to do so, in my mind. Have you raised your ticket prices? Do you advance book extensively? How good is Kate Avatar? Are you booking larger venues than you can fill and profit from (i.e. do you book the 1000 seat venue when your expected attendance is 550)? Are you frontloading your TV show? Meaning, do you bring out the stars for the TV show or just settle for running a show? Your TV show is where your popularity is going to come from so it's where you should be putting your best foot forward. Are you pushing your cheapest workers? I love Megumi Nakajima to death and having HER in the main event instead of Kit Hatoyama saves me 650 per show. These are things you learn by doing. I sign Shiori Jippensha, Tai, and Karen Bilous and have the latter two (mostly) job to my more capable workers until their skills come around. By that time, they're ready for the Jesus push treatment. Like I said, I can't tell you exactly what to do to accomplish what you want because from day one, we operate differently. The only thing I can tell you is that if you run 5SSW like you'd run MAW, chances are you're on the right track.

[Anubis]

[QUOTE=Remianen;182398]Have you raised your ticket prices?[/QUOTE] Lowered them, actually, at least for my small events; economy and industry are slipping and I can't even sell out the places at the lower prices, and lowering the prices increased my turnout pretty good. [QUOTE=Remianen;182398]Do you advance book extensively?[/QUOTE] Almost never. I don't usually book the same people against each other every week, which hurts the heat on advanced booking. That and I usually book on a week-by-week basis as it is. [QUOTE=Remianen;182398]How good is Kate Avatar?[/QUOTE] Best in the promotion; she's one of the default user characters, remember? [QUOTE=Remianen;182398]Are you booking larger venues than you can fill and profit from (i.e. do you book the 1000 seat venue when your expected attendance is 550)?[/QUOTE] I always book Tiny and get 800-1000 attendance. The game has suggested Very Small a few times, but I've never dared because the price is just way too high. [QUOTE=Remianen;182398]Are you frontloading your TV show? Meaning, do you bring out the stars for the TV show or just settle for running a show? Your TV show is where your popularity is going to come from so it's where you should be putting your best foot forward.[/QUOTE] On the television show, I use my people that are on written contracts along with the cheapest talent I have on the roster. Every single show I've run so far has increased my popularity. [QUOTE=Remianen;182398]Are you pushing your cheapest workers? I love Megumi Nakajima to death and having HER in the main event instead of Kit Hatoyama saves me 650 per show.[/QUOTE] I rarely ever use the workers that cost as much as Kit Hatoyama. I usually just load up the cheap workers with the written contract workers and go for easy ratings. Problem is, most of my champions are on PPA contracts (The Rainbow Girls and Yuma Whateverhernameis), and those belts are beneath the other written contract workers. I must admit I do try to book realistically, booking different matches each week and such and mixing it up and trying to make things interesting. Still, I've cut back to three or four matches per show. I even traded for Alexis Lee Littlefeather and Nurse Darla Knight from BSC (pretty much their only good cheap workers as far as I can see) because they're even cheaper than my cheapest and almost as good in order to cut costs. I have no problems with match or show ratings at all, all shows have been at least C- and I've gotten a few B+ matches even. The only problem is that the sponsor money is absolute crap (not even enough to pay for the written contracts) and I make [i]no[/i] money from ticket sales after subtracting wages. I've managed to slow down the losses to about $2000-4000 per month, but I have only a year and a half to make back all the lost money [i]plus[/i] $55,000, and I just don't think it's possible unless I get the PPV deal. I have applied to Jade at least ten times now, and even though my television ratings have hit like 0.13, Jade won't give me a deal, which is weird since that's not even the smallest PPV carrier size.

[Anubis]

Well I hit Cult and that finally got me my PPV deal. Unfortunately, right after that, disaster struck. Thunder Hike's contract was coming up. So I negotiate and try to get a Written, but she rejects. I try to give her a PPA just under her asking price, and she rejects. I then offer her more money, but now she rejects because she says I didn't offer her a long enough contract; it supposed said 16 months, and since I could only pick 12 or 18, I naturally went with the 12 because anytime I go over, they usually reject me. Anyway, unlike usual, where negotiations resume the next day, she blew me off completely and now I'm losing her, and when I try to negotiate again, she says she's not interested at all due to the breakdown in negotiations. This, I believe, is a bug, given she has LOYALTY. Question: Why are written contracts even an option for promotions that are too small to get them? It's impossible completely to get a written contract probably before National level, so why is the option even there? If it weren't, I wouldn't have lost one of my top people now. I think this goes in bug reports, right? EDIT: The biggest problem is that she's one of my few locker room leaders. Such a disaster, and after I had finally started making money thanks to turning my weekly second event into a weekly PPV event (making $25,000 per event, which will go a long way to helping me catch up on the money losses). I hate cheating, but I almost feel compelled to go edit her contract to give her like another year on my roster or something. It's either that or start over at this point, since I doubt the promotion would be able to make it without her since I'd lose one of my people helping me get the good match ratings. I considered just plain burying her completely before her contract is up, but that still leaves the issue of losing a locker room leader and having no replacement, since there is no one in CornellVerse able to replace her skill and respect level. Bad enough she was asking for over $2000 per appearnace. :(

[Remianen]

If the suggested length is 14 months, you offer them 12. If the suggested length is 16 months, you offer 18. BUT, there are two values listed in the suggested price and length area. It says, "For a written contract..." and "For a pay per appearance contract..." with two different terms listed. Generally speaking, most workers ask for 9 month long PPA deals (it'll say 8 or 9 months in the suggested length blurb). I wouldn't call having 'Written' as an option below National is a bug. It might be assumptive (assuming you know when you can sign people to writtens) but bug? Only Adam can say for sure. Again, this is another case of learn by doing. You're unfamiliar with these 'tricks' and the subtle nuance of things. I'd chalk it up as a lesson and find a way to function for 6 months without Thunder Hike (in 6 months, she'll probably be open to speaking to you unless she's developed a strong dislike for you, then it's hard to say).

[Anubis]

Yeah, but losing a Loyal locker room leader is a disaster isn't it? Plus, I can't figure out [i]why[/i] it happened. With Loyalty, and considering I didn't make like "offensive" offers, it makes no sense that she refuses to negotiate now. Her refusing to give it a chance despite Loyalty is what makes me think this is a bug. Loyalty [i]is[/i] supposed to prevent silly stuff like this, isn't it? If I do keep playing I may edit a Dislike relationship from me toward her, because after this stunt, I definitely don't like her. Makes me really mad. The big thing I wonder is, why do we get so many options when they never take deals outside the suggested "industry standard" ranges? Certain offers should be considered depending on what they are. Like if you want a longer contract than usual, offering more money should get it. Stuff like that, to make all the options do something. As it stands, most of the options never come into play and can't be used for whatever reason, and I don't quite understand the reasoning. Sorry, this one just really freaking bugs me because I [i]finally[/i] turned the game around and then this happens to screw up all my work. It's beyond frustrating, especially since I figured Loyalty is there to prevent exactly this kind of thing.