Main Event Booking

[curtains]

So for the first few months, before fighters become unavailable and such, the AI seems to put together relatively good matches for the title. Lately it's been completely worthless however.

They are constantly matching up the champion with guys ranked outside the top ten with maybe 1 fight in the org, when there are tons of guys who are performing very well. The latest amusement was when SIGMA picks up some guy who is 35-18 and clearly not very good (Bence Bodor), and immediately matches him up with Terron Cabal for the title as his first fight in the org. Meanwhile there are like 3 guys performing very well in Oktay, Papaioannou and Sarkisian.

This is not an isolated thing, in almost every org, the majority of title fights pit the champion vs some random nobody. Tadamasa Yamada is fighting Naoki Itch, Heiji Endo vs Wade LeCavalier to name a few. It's as if the AI can't look ahead until the real contenders will be available to fight and doesn't give a flying crap about the rankings or whether the undefeated top contender ever gets a title shot in his career. I know that stuff like this happens occasionally but not a single top contender has been given a chance in the last 6 months, instead they keep fighting guys who aren't even ranked.

[LFC_chris]

Maybe they are just trying to make their champ look good by feeding him rubbish fighters to beat?

[Adam Ryland]

Would it not have made more sense to post this in the technical support forum and ask if it could be looked into, rather than just calling it moronic. :confused: It's like you're going out of your way to make me not want to help you, which just seems self-defeating in the extreme.

Despite your bizarre tactics, I will take a look into it tomorrow and see if I can spot what's up.

[curtains]

Would it not have made more sense to post this in the technical support forum and ask if it could be looked into, rather than just calling it moronic. :confused: It's like you're going out of your way to make me not want to help you, which just seems self-defeating in the extreme.

Despite your bizarre tactics, I will take a look into it tomorrow and see if I can spot what's up.

I wrestled with the question of where to post it and I would have posted it in technical support but I wasn't certain that it was a tech problem. Maybe the AI was not designed to be particularly intelligent? This wouldn't be the first game where this is the case. (didnt play WMMA1 much so had no idea if it's normal)

Also the idea of wanting to help me personally? This will affect everyone, not just me, so it's kind of absurd to suggest that because I post something in the wrong spot or using the wrong wording, that you will somehow have less incentive to fix it for all of your customers.

Also you insult everyone constantly when you disagree with their suggestions or strong opinions, fortunately your product is good enough that I could care less.

[Adam Ryland]

Maybe the AI was not designed to be particularly intelligent?

It's designed to follow rules, as most AI is. 9 times out of 10, if the AI is doing something "dumb", it's because the rules are too strict. For example, my guess is that I'll find that in your Bence Bodor example that the rules left him as the only possible contender - the others all being eliminated because they either had lost their previous fight, were recovering from injury or had already faced the champion recently - and so while it may look incorrect from outside, a closer look will reveal it to be a logical decision. (This is backed up by the fact you said it got worse over time - the amount of challengers will naturally get less over the course of time because the champion will have successful defences and more of the challengers will be out recovering from other fights, whereas at the start of the game there are no beaten challengers or previous matches to contend with.) The question then is whether to relax the rules, and by how much.

[curtains]

It's designed to follow rules, as most AI is. 9 times out of 10, if the AI is doing something "dumb", it's because the rules are too strict. For example, my guess is that I'll find that in your Bence Bodor example that the rules left him as the only possible contender - the others all being eliminated because they either had lost their previous fight, were recovering from injury or had already faced the champion recently - and so while it may look incorrect from outside, a closer look will reveal it to be a logical decision. (This is backed up by the fact you said it got worse over time - the amount of challengers will naturally get less over the course of time because the champion will have successful defences and more of the challengers will be out recovering from other fights, whereas at the start of the game there are no beaten challengers or previous matches to contend with.) The question then is whether to relax the rules, and by how much.


Just a note that this was just one example. All title fights have been between great fighters and mediocre ones, in most cases with 3-4 better contenders being passed over. It seems the AI isn't willing to wait 2-3 months until a reasonable contender is available?

[Capelli King]

probably it is not, just simply books the fight as soon as the title holder is healthy

[mickel]

Starting to see some of this too. As an example, In Alpha-1, Yamada's next challenger is Michael Bannon, who has a 4-2 record in ALPHA-1, only won one of his last 2 fights, with High Regional name value and 47% rep. Ranked 10th in their LHW rankings.

It seems to be happening to Fezzik and Basora too, but for them their last two defenses were on ALPHA-1's TV show, so though it seems a strange decision to book title matches on TV so often, sorta explains why they faced bad opponents.

[Mr_Tricky]

How far are you guys into the game? I'm two years in and it's not too bad for me, there are some bad match ups for me, but that's expected since the top contender and the champ have to be ready at the same time, also the promotions are pressured to put on events every month which leaves them forced to throw the best possible match together

This happens in real life too, like Brock Lesnar getting a title shot at Randy Couture or Joe Riggs at Matt Hughes, they weren't ideal contenders, but they were matched up because of timing and circumstance.

[Bigpapa42]

Remember that some promotions actually work this way as a rule. Pride put its champions in there against challengers who weren't really deserving of challenging for the title time after time. There were, of course, big title fights as well. But Pride didn't try to make every title fight seem like a major affair. The UFC does try to make it seem that way, though they honestly have some title fights where the challenger isn't really a top contender (such as Anderson Silva versus Patrick Cote).

[Bossman]

This happens in real life too, like Brock Lesnar getting a title shot at Randy Couture or Joe Riggs at Matt Hughes, they weren't ideal contenders, but they were matched up because of timing and circumstance.

Lesnar is one of the most popular fighters in UFC so giving him the title shot was a very smart move.

[Bigpapa42]

Lesnar is one of the most popular fighters in UFC so giving him the title shot was a very smart move.

A very smart business move. It was capitalizing on Lesnar's popularity. From a sporting perspective, it didn't make much sense. Though Lesnar justified it by beating Couture.

[Mling]

It made more sense then any other option.

They could have done:

A) Postpone Mir vs Nogueria and give it to Nogueria
B) Cancel Werdum vs Dos Santos
C) Given it to Shane Carwin or Cain Velazquez
D) Given it to Kongo who had just lost to Heath Herring
E) Give it to Lesnar

And since A and B where clearly not options that made sense, and C and D wouldn't do as well as E.

Lesnar was the perfect choice.

[Adam Ryland]

Just a note that this was just one example. All title fights have been between great fighters and mediocre ones, in most cases with 3-4 better contenders being passed over.

Are the better contenders actually being passed over, or are they just not available \ have already fought the champion recently? It's important that you check. I have been looking at the code and it's looking solid to me, for a "bad" challenger to get a shot would mean that the more worthy contenders would all have to be incapacitated. (Noting that you have to take into account popularity - irrespective of a guy's form of win-loss record, he won't get a main event title shot if he doesn't have the popularity to be there, otherwise the AI would end up tanking its own shows by giving unknown guys main event slots.)

It seems the AI isn't willing to wait 2-3 months until a reasonable contender is available?

The AI does not wait around like a human might do, hanging on specific matches, it cannot - otherwise some titles might never get defended as there's no decent challengers at all! It picks one guy to main event then works out who to put him against.

[curtains]

Are the better contenders actually being passed over, or are they just not available \ have already fought the champion recently? It's important that you check. I have been looking at the code and it's looking solid to me, for a "bad" challenger to get a shot would mean that the more worthy contenders would all have to be incapacitated. (Noting that you have to take into account popularity - irrespective of a guy's form of win-loss record, he won't get a main event title shot if he doesn't have the popularity to be there, otherwise the AI would end up tanking its own shows by giving unknown guys main event slots.)



The AI does not wait around like a human might do, hanging on specific matches, it cannot - otherwise some titles might never get defended as there's no decent challengers at all! It picks one guy to main event then works out who to put him against.


Pretty sure that they are all unavailable. My point is that when there is a very natural and clear matchup between a champion and an obvious number 1 contender, the AI doesn't seem to do very much to ensure they meet on a timely basis. I mean we will see what happens in the longrun, but if there is no reasonable contender it seems possible to wait at least a month or so to see if one will be available then, instead of just throwing them in with a complete scrub.

I'll see how it plays out over the next few months, things have gotten slightly better. Perhaps to start the game the AI has no restrictions in who it can match up, and so it goes on full blast with all of the top guys and suddenly there are availability problems? In the last month or two things have seemed better with more reasonable main events.

[Adam Ryland]

but if there is no reasonable contender it seems possible to wait at least a month or so to see if one will be available then, instead of just throwing them in with a complete scrub.

Not really - although that sounds simple, and is to a human player, that would require very advanced AI as you're asking it to take into account a huge amount of variables and to plan quite far in advance. Doing that correctly would be very cutting edge stuff, much more advanced than what I can realistically offer in a game like this.

I will re-highlight the fact that the rankings aren't relevant to this discussion, as people keep bringing them up. The guy who is #2 in the rankings isn't necessarily going to get a title shot, as in order to main event he has to be a certain level of popularity. The AI won't give someone a shot because they've earned it in the ring if their popularity is going to make for a bad buy rate.

[Bossman]

The match order of the AI events is sometimes a bit strange. I'm using the latest patch and BCF just had an event where the main event was a title match between Sithalayan (mid regional) vs Bould (low regional) and the co-main event was Kapur (high regional) vs Barr (high regional).

Maybe the AI values title matches too much because the Kapur vs Barr match would have been a much better main event.

[mickel]

Remember that titles do actually add interest to matches. More than once I've checked fan feedback before adding a title to a match and seen a higher interest level afterwards.