Tweaks

[Decado]

Just a few things that i think could be tweaked/improved in one thread:

1)Shortlist : Could the shortlist be made useful? e.g: you get an email whenever a shortlisted fighter becomes available to negotiate with/has a fight?

2)Card Rating: Could the card rating be based off of the fights in the card? The anticipation shouldn't affect this rating, since it's totally irrelevant. Maybe there could be 2 ratings? Event Popularity and Event Rating? This would make it easier to see how much the people who DID watch the event enjoyed it, and also see how good the event was for the company as a whole.

3)Fan Feedback: Just now it seems that there is an overwhelming need to have the fighters in a main event both on win streaks. As a low level regional company, I was told that a co-main event between a Mid level regional and High Level regional fighter would be "disappointing" because the high level fighter was coming off of a loss. Replacing him with a low level regional fighter on a win streak changed it to a "great" main event.

To me this makes little sense - If a fighter is overwhelmingly popular, people will pay to see them rather than an almost unknown on a win streak. For instance look at the buy rates guys like chuck liddell and tito ortiz have done when coming off of losses, There is no way those buy rates would have been the same if instead of them, it was a mid card fighter on a win streak fighting. This aspect of the game makes little sense.

4)Titles: It seems to me that a fight being for the title makes almost no difference to the fans anticipation of the fight... In my mind, a fight being for the title definetely increases anticipation... Is this not factored in the game or am i missing something?

5)Booking Restrictions: Is there a reason we are limited to 3 normal events scheduled at a time/ 2 events per month? I often like to plan 2 months ahead, which is usually 4 events for me, but it's made almost impossible just now. Is there any reason for this or could the restriction be removed/altered?

6)Contracts - Just now i've found that a fighter will say he wants say $1000 to sign an exclusive contract, and then 9 times out of 10 will say he wants a higher base pay. Is there a reason the starting figure is almost always too low? Surely if the fighter says thats what he would want for an exclusive contract, he would accept that?

Equally, some fighters just won't sign exclusive contracts, but it still says they would want $1000 or whatever to sign one? Is this a bug or just an oversight?

7) Match Engine - I have found that even if i give a fighter 100 for striking skills, and really low wrestling skills, then give him the master of strategy perk, he will STILL try and engage better wrestlers than him. Why is this? Is the engine biased towards wrestling? Is there any way it can be fixed? It's simple enough to test this out with quick match, hopefully it can be recalibrated.


Okay thats me done =P Hopefully you won't take this all as criticism Adam, I know i have been bringing up a lot of perceived flaws lately, I do it because i really like your work, and the game, and just want to see it improved. For a one man team you do a fantastic job on the WMMA games, and i know how exhausting and frustrating it can be when you release a new game only to be hit with a wall of customers with minor complaints and little appreciation. Just want you to know that i'm certain that everyone who has played and enjoyed WMMA2 is extremely grateful to you for a job well done, even if we don't take as much time to express that as to express our unhappiness.

Anyone else should feel free to leave feedback on the suggestions above as well, of course ^^

[Adam Ryland]

2)Card Rating: Could the card rating be based off of the fights in the card? ... This would make it easier to see how much the people who DID watch the event enjoyed it, and also see how good the event was for the company as a whole.

No, I think that would be pointless - you already can see how much the fans enjoyed the show from a fight quality perspective (just look at the fight ratings...is it really necessary to sum up what can already be seen very clearly in one glance already?), and the existing rating does tell you how good the event was for a company as a whole. Having a rating that sums up the fight quality would therefore be pointless, and worse, would give people the impression that fight quality is what matters.

3)Fan Feedback: Just now it seems that there is an overwhelming need to have the fighters in a main event both on win streaks. ... To me this makes little sense ... This aspect of the game makes little sense.

There is no need for winning streaks to be in place, but it does help enormously if the fighters are coming off wins. You may think this makes little sense, but I would argue that you yourself gave the reason - the fact that it's a game.

I can understand why you want it changed, but I would suggest that part of the reason is from a selfish point of view - it would make life easier for you. Just look at the other suggestions in this forum - some people want to be able to book guys irrespective of popularity ("because they perform well"), you want to be able to ignore form, other people want one hot fighter be able to carry the entire show....if we implemented all of them you may as well just let everyone book whatever the hell they want and just give a great rating every time. There has to be SOME restrictions and negatives, otherwise there's no point even bothering having any ratings at all. Having negatives attached to trying to main event with fighters who lost last time out is hardly illogical - it's a sport primarily based around winning - and adds a layer of planning to booking.

4)Titles: It seems to me that a fight being for the title makes almost no difference to the fans anticipation of the fight... In my mind, a fight being for the title definetely increases anticipation... Is this not factored in the game or am i missing something?

I don't think titles make a great deal of difference to anticipation in reality, some of the best drawing fights ever have not been to do with titles. Besides which, if they did make a different, you may as well just make multiple titles for each weight class anyway.

7) Match Engine - I have found that even if i give a fighter 100 for striking skills, and really low wrestling skills, then give him the master of strategy perk, he will STILL try and engage better wrestlers than him. Why is this? Is the engine biased towards wrestling? Is there any way it can be fixed? It's simple enough to test this out with quick match, hopefully it can be recalibrated.

There is always a reason. He could be trying to apply a Muay Thai clinch, use some close range dirty boxing, or it could be that it is one of the rare occasions where he had 2% desire to grapple vs 98% desire to strike, and the 2% won out. If he is going for a grapple then his desire for that tactic was not zero, and so he must not be entirely against it.

[curtains]

I don't understand, Titles definitely do add to the anticipation of a match? When it's not already at great anticipation, it seems to always go up at least one notch when you add a title to the picture?

[Adam Ryland]

I don't understand, Titles definitely do add to the anticipation of a match? When it's not already at great anticipation, it seems to always go up at least one notch when you add a title to the picture?

They add some, but not a massive amount (hence "I don't think [they] make a great deal of difference").

[AlexB]

There's abalance within the game, some that favours the AI, some that fours the player. The booking in advance is a major advantage in favour of the player - you can sign a fighter on an Associate contract at less than market value but by booking him well in advance you can if effect treat him as an exclsuive fighter as the AI does not book in advance at all. Yet this doesn't make your list ;)

Having said that I completely agree with your points 1 & 6

[Decado]

No, I think that would be pointless - you already can see how much the fans enjoyed the show from a fight quality perspective (just look at the fight ratings...is it really necessary to sum up what can already be seen very clearly in one glance already?), and the existing rating does tell you how good the event was for a company as a whole. Having a rating that sums up the fight quality would therefore be pointless, and worse, would give people the impression that fight quality is what matters.

Point Taken.


There is no need for winning streaks to be in place, but it does help enormously if the fighters are coming off wins. You may think this makes little sense, but I would argue that you yourself gave the reason - the fact that it's a game.

Understood, I was just making the point that, to me, it seems that the win streak matters a little *too* much. If you spend ages building a fighter up to huge popularity, then he gets caught, suddenly you can't main event with him again for about 6 months or so (assuming he wins both his next 2 fights)

It just seems to me that a fighter being a rank higher in popularity and coming off a victory, would be just as exciting to fans as a fighter a rank lower on a win streak? Just now the game would favour the lower rank w/ win streak.

Perhaps making it so the fighters charisma, excitement etc has more effect on his popularity (so people could concentrate on charismatic fighters who may be inferior to better dull fighters or do it the other way round if they so choose) would be an idea?




I don't think titles make a great deal of difference to anticipation in reality, some of the best drawing fights ever have not been to do with titles. Besides which, if they did make a different, you may as well just make multiple titles for each weight class anyway.

Point taken - I hadn't considered the multiple-titles scenario. Do titles still have prestige ratings? If so maybe the prestige of a title could influence it's anticipation? Although thinking about it, it would require something semi-complex to make sure that having more than 1 title per weight class didn't give an advantage, so i can see why it hasn't/won't be added.




There is always a reason. He could be trying to apply a Muay Thai clinch, use some close range dirty boxing, or it could be that it is one of the rare occasions where he had 2% desire to grapple vs 98% desire to strike, and the 2% won out. If he is going for a grapple then his desire for that tactic was not zero, and so he must not be entirely against it.

*nods* I've read this before, but with the tests i've run, it still seems to happen amazingly frequently - fighters who shouldn't be trying to wrestle at all often still do it constantly during the fight. Is there any way you could perhaps do a few quick-match balance tests so you can see if there is any tweaking you could do (if neccessary?) If you like i could run a comprehensive test using fighters with 100% striking 0% wrestling and then change the %ages each time to see how it affects the fighters behaviour.


On a semi related note: Is there a PBP line for someone trying to pull their opponent down into full guard for a submission attempt? (i.e vinny magalahres vs kristof sozieynski (sp?) ) I think it could make the BJJ practitioners more dangerous - just now i see very few submissions - though that could just be my round/cage set up, i haven't tested that =)

[Decado]

Just another quick little suggestion:

Is it possible for the fight quality to have a bit more effect on the fighters popularity? It seems to me that a fighter losing an absolute war with a great/fantastic rating should gain more popularity than a fighter who wins a poor decision? From what i've seen this isn't the case. Hopefully something like that could be implemented?

It would encourage people to try to work out what would make the best/most entertaining fights, rather than just book in order to make/preserve win streaks, which is what we have to do just now. As something of a booking sim, i think that booking fights that are exciting should be more important than it is just now.

Any chance of something like this being done?

EDIT:

Just a little point about your concerns about people booking in advance: Eventually you will run out of fighters to book - or at least viable main event contenders, so the game kind of has a built-in limitation on booking events in advance. With this in mind, would it be possible to remove the 3 normal events limit?

[Adam Ryland]

*nods* I've read this before, but with the tests i've run, it still seems to happen amazingly frequently - fighters who shouldn't be trying to wrestle at all often still do it constantly during the fight. Is there any way you could perhaps do a few quick-match balance tests so you can see if there is any tweaking you could do (if neccessary?)

I can't say I've seen this happen regularly in any of my hundreds of simulations without a reason for it, but I will run some specific tests to see if I can uncover a reason for the behaviour you are experiencing.

On a semi related note: Is there a PBP line for someone trying to pull their opponent down into full guard for a submission attempt? (i.e vinny magalahres vs kristof sozieynski (sp?) ) I think it could make the BJJ practitioners more dangerous - just now i see very few submissions - though that could just be my round/cage set up, i haven't tested that =)

No, currently pulling down into full guard does not happen, the fighter would have to use their takedown skill to end up on top. I will look into it as an addition.

Is it possible for the fight quality to have a bit more effect on the fighters popularity?

It currently works on a scale, so you will see greater gains for fighters who already have popularity (as more people are seeing them fight and noticing their skills in the first place). I will look into upping the rate slightly for lower level fighters.

[Decado]

Thanks, Adam.

It's refreshing to find a developer who will listen to his customers and give a frank and honest reply, regardless of whether it is positive or negative.

It's appreciated, especially as you give full reasoning for your decisions, which means that even if people don't agree with the decisions, they can at least understand them :)

[AlexB]

It currently works on a scale, so you will see greater gains for fighters who already have popularity (as more people are seeing them fight and noticing their skills in the first place). I will look into upping the rate slightly for lower level fighters.

I'm finding that the problem is that a rookie fighter destroying some bum in a couple of minutes is priving to be two or three times as popular as a high level regional guy beating a low or mid regional fighter in 2-3 rounds.

If the lower level rates are boosted it will be more unequal - it may just be me, but I would have thought that a rookie beating a bum would have only a small popularity boost, but if a veteran beats another veteran that's where the increase should be higher.

Example: on my last card Garry McSweegan (started at 78% pop) destroyed Dave Lennon (60%), both on win streaks - knocked him down in all three rounds, nearly got stoppages in two of them, but only got a 10% popularity boost.

On the same card William Harrison (5%, 4-0) destroyed Kojuri Ichichi (22%, 0-3 since the start of the game) and got a 1st round submission - the fight was ranked Great. His popularity increased to 25%

Chad Zoff (1-0, 5%) beat William Powell (37%, 0-4 since the start of the game) by unanimous decision and rose to 26%, despite the fight only being Decent.

If the other rookies are anything to go by they will increase by roughly this 20% every time they destroy a bum, but McSweegan has only risen from 60% to 88% after beating Graham Goodbody (27% at time of fight), Mick Curran (46%) and Dave Lennon, all on winning streaks at the time. Two fights were rated good, one decent.

Although anticipation of McSweegan's fights was much higher than the rookies (all 3 fights were headlines, all 'great' main events when booked, although the latter suddenly became 'very poor' in one day with the rise to National) the rookie v. bum fights, often on the prelims, consistently result in much higher popularity boosts than two top ten contenders fighting each other.

My HW champ is Curt Kitson, he headline one event, beat Stafford Alois who is the most popular guy in BCF and then defended against Percy Catcher who beat two top 10 guys he was supposed to lose to in his first defence - Kitson in 3 wins, 2 for titles, has risen from 60% to 91%. Murilo Satinho has fought 4 times in his career, all for me, three against bums and one against the defeated Alois, and he is now exactly as popular at 4-0 as Kitson (91%), who is on at least a five match win streak against top contenders (we don't know how many he won before the game starts), and more popular than McSweegan who is also on at least a 5 match win streak.

Therefore I believe that the popularity boost should be downgraded for lower level fighters and boosted for the higher ones, or at least directly scaled against the quality of fighter faced. It's the relatively slow build up of popularity of the upper fighters that is causing the problem of not being able to put on a headline fight with a level rise.

Now I have dropped back to 90% high regional, all of my reasonable fighters are able to headline great events again, while for 2 shows they were deadbeats in the games eyes, but the problem for me is in how slowly the more established guys increase.

(Unless of course re-reading things that high regional guys are considered lower level, in which case the alterations would be good!)

[Adam Ryland]

Some of that may be due to your rookies being undefeated, as that status means that everything is given an extra bonus, thus allowing people to rise quickly.

I will look into it when doing the other work.

[Derek B]

Just want to add that all the example listed above have a lesser guy beating a higher guy, getting "high" gains or a higher guy beating a lower guy, getting "low" gains... which sounds about right to me as beating people below you would boost your popularity less than by beating guys above you (at least in terms of popularity).

[AlexB]

Just want to add that all the example listed above have a lesser guy beating a higher guy, getting "high" gains or a higher guy beating a lower guy, getting "low" gains... which sounds about right to me as beating people below you would boost your popularity less than by beating guys above you (at least in terms of popularity).

Point taken, but think there's an issue as well - another example then! Rob Baines is 3-0 with me:
1st fight (62%) submits Hans Schneider (20%) in R1- rated great, Baines up to 73%
2nd fight - title fight, submits the champ George Laurent (72%) in R2 - rated Fantastic, Baines only rises to 84% regional
3rd fight - title defence, submits Andrew Rush (10% National) in R3 - rated Great, Baines only rises to 99% regional

It may well be undefeated aspect that throws it on the lower level as Adam says, as by the third rookie fight they're generally more popular than their bum opponent, but still get the same 20-25% gains. Glad it's at least being looked at.

The other idea I've had is that beacuse of the slow build up of the premier fighters, the additional 10% hit really hurts the headline fights - is it worth giving the fighters a 10% popularity boost in that region as well as the company when rising a level, and similarly drop an extra 10% if you fall. At least that way the parity has more of a chance of being maintained.

[Derek B]

I'm not saying there isn't an issue, just pointing out the examples all fell into a pattern that might've been contributing to it. I also had some real trouble in the early patches taking my 0 popularity company over the regional threshold as my guys weren't getting popular enough, fast enough... I really needed to milk unbeat streaks to get there and sign some really weak talent that GAMMA were letting go to have the popularity... and in the end I had to pit my two undefeated female fighters (low national and mid national) together for the women's title to get up there.

But as mentioned, the gains are scaled and I didn't have an issue with a small promotion having difficulty growing, though there may need to be some tweaking done to the numbers to get it just right. :)

[Caninrok]

No, currently pulling down into full guard does not happen, the fighter would have to use their takedown skill to end up on top. I will look into it as an addition.

I'd just like to voice my support for an addition such as this, though it should probably be somewhat rare there are BJJ centered fighters who try to pull their opponent down into their guard. The Flying Guard is a rare though very cool move.

On a related note, it seems to me, and I may be totally off base here because I may just not have had the fighters/matchups to have witnessed it, that there doesn't seem to be a lot of fighters going for submissions from their back. The seem to focus on keeping guard and sweeping This is appropriate but, I would have thought I'd be seeing more triangle choke attempts from the bottom. Though, they should be less likely if the top opponent is throwing elbows and more likely if the top opponent is throwing punches. Or at least, that's what listening to Bas Ruten commentary has taught me.

Hope this isn't considered thread hijacking but as the comment about considering adding the pull to guard was already in this thread I thought I'd keep the conversation here.

[Adam Ryland]

there doesn't seem to be a lot of fighters going for submissions from their back.

As you say, this is likely that you just haven't been watching the right fighters; there are plenty of possible submissions from the back, some people have posted matches where it has happened in the submissions thread in the main forum.

[AlexB]

Overnight thought about this some more - IMHO (and I know it Adam's baby!) the rate at which the rookie fighters currently increase in popularity should be the rate at which un upper level winning streak fighter increases.

If a guy fights every 5-6 months and keeps beatingother top guys, his pop. should at least keep pace with the organisation pop, if not be slightly higher as he would be the star driving the org increase. Currently, when a top fighter loses the pop stagnates, and this works fine, a win to get back on track and away you go again.

An org increases in popularity beacuse of the fights and the fighters - if a monthly card results in org pop rising 5-6% every time, the winning streak fighters need to increase by at least 20-25% a time: if they were stars before their previous victory and carried on the streak against a viable opponent, they should still be stars next time they fight. Alternatively, as this seems a little high to me, maybe it;'s the the org pop should be dropped a little to compensate, maybe along with a slight increase in fighter pop (and still a drop in rookie fighters)...

[AlexB]

I really should be thinking more about work!, but a proviso on my post above - winning streak fighter pop should only keep up/outstrip the org pop if the fights are against viable opponents and are exciting.

So young fighters fighting scrubs would develop slowly, then increase in pace as they beat more reputable opponents with decent records/winning streaks (getting to the point where they outstrip the pace of the org pop in order to catch up the star fighters which is I guess what the undefeated factor tries to do at the moment)

Quick question - is the undefeated factor for truly undefeated fighters, or also for fighters undefeated in your company? Thinking of when you bring in a new fighter to push towards a title fight, he should probably be classed in the same way as a rookie (if he is not already).

Please bear in mind that I have only ever played as BCF, so my 'star' fighters are high regional/low national guys

[Adam Ryland]

Please note that today's patch including the ability for a fighter to pull another into his guard from standing (it's relatively rare to see, but a good person to try it with is Julio Reguerio against Carlos da Guia given that he is a submission specialist who can't expect to stand against his opponent - he's done it fairly regularly during tests) and also there has been an alteration to increase the amount of popularity a fighter can receive from excellent matches.

Regarding the "strikers who try to grapple when they shouldn't", I ran Quick Sim tests for over an hour with customised fighters, and didn't see a single instance of this happening. I can only conclude that it's something specific to the way you are setting up the fighters, so I suggest that you create two fighters with whom this phenomenon is visible, and send me a database with them in - that way I can Quick Sim there matches and see what is happening.

[AlexB]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;623139]...there has been an alteration to increase the amount of popularity a fighter can receive from excellent matches... QUOTE]

Sounds good - thanks Adam.

[Caninrok]

Please note that today's patch including the ability for a fighter to pull another into his guard from standing (it's relatively rare to see, but a good person to try it with is Julio Reguerio against Carlos da Guia given that he is a submission specialist who can't expect to stand against his opponent - he's done it fairly regularly during tests) and also there has been an alteration to increase the amount of popularity a fighter can receive from excellent matches.



Two great additions! Thanks a lot Adam! I really think there are few, if any, game developers/programmers out there who'd take the time to add a rare feature to their product just because a few people (or less!) asked for it. Its just one of the reasons I've bought all (I think) of your commercial games - constant improvement.