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Post by Big Boss Man on Mar 16, 2020 17:07:14 GMT 1
#42: AI booker skill upgrade
Just a small update today to fill you in on a little bit of an upgrade that got added in the past few days.
One of the big focuses for this project has been improving the AI booking, but one particular aspect of that is simulating the difference between good, mediocre, and bad bookers. The new upgrade is to make the 'hidden pushes' feature that I've announced before dependent on the skill of the booker. It works like this:
- AI bookers who have less than 85 Booking Skill lose access to the 'big' and 'mega' push ability. This means they're less able to get new talent over or to exploit potential stars on their roster.
- Below 80, and they also lose the ability to give hidden "de-pushes" to workers whose skills are declining. This means that they're going to find it much harder to cycle out the deadwood at the top of the card.
- If their skill is below 75 then they lose access to all the hidden push options, which will really hamper their ability to manage their roster over time.
So, overall, this should not only add another layer of realism as you see poor bookers harm their own companies through incompetence, but it's also making the booking skill a more useful and interesting stat.
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Post by Big Boss Man on Mar 21, 2020 14:35:14 GMT 1
#44: The week that was, FAQThis has been a pretty productive week in that I've managed to get a huge portion of the remaining database completed, plus tidy up a lot of the remaining code work and make the fixes that have come up with testing. None of that is particularly exciting, but as we head into the final few weeks only having dull stuff to do is actually a very good thing - it means the game is very stable. With the release on the horizon, it has led to a big increase in the number of people e-mailing and PMing me with questions. I haven't really got enough time to respond to people individually so I thought I'd do a quick FAQ to cover the most asked ones - so apologies if you don't get a personal reply, hopefully you understand that my work load is through the roof at the moment, for obvious reasons.
Will the editor be released early so that database makers can get to work on mods?
No, this will not be happening. I had hoped to release a standalone editor a couple of weeks early, but as it stands this isn't going to fit into my schedule.
Will there be a public beta like last time?Yes. About a week before the game goes on sale we will release a public beta trial. For those who aren't familiar with this, this serves as both a pre-release "try before you buy" trial and also a beta copy where I can fix any installation issues or errors that we missed before the game goes to retail.
The editor is active in the public beta, so database makers will be able to convert and start work on their database if they wish.
How long will the trial version allow me to play for?
It will be the same as the last version; you will be able to play January and February of any year. You will be able to start as many save games as you want, you just won't be able to advance past the last day of February.
Can I use mods in the trial? How long will I have to wait until they're available?
Yes you can use mods, as long as they're set to start in January or February. Most of the current TEW2016 mods require only a few seconds of work to make them playable, and it's almost exclusively just to address issues whereby a worker illegally has both exclusive and non-exclusive contracts. Anyone with even a basic understanding on the editor can do this themselves in seconds.
Obviously the mods will not be immediately optimised to the new TEW2020 features, but you can certainly play them and get a very good sense of how the game runs.
Will I be able to continue save games that I start in the trial version when the retail version comes out?
Yes.
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Post by Big Boss Man on Mar 28, 2020 12:09:56 GMT 1
#45: Release dates, current status
With the project coming to its close, I can now announce the release dates for the game.
Thursday April 23rd will be the release of the trial / public beta [see the previous entry if you don't know what that involves]
Thursday April 30th will be the release of the full retail version of the game
As usual, we will not be announcing a specific time of day for the release in order to try and ease the burden on the servers. Please note that the release is being handled by Grey Dog Software, who are based in Arizona, so it will all be done in regard to American time zones; therefore just because you may see me online and posting that does not mean the game is imminent, as I'm in the UK and don't have anything to do with the actual release.
With so many people being in lockdown, obviously there's likely to be a lot more traffic than usual on the two release days - as a request, please try and help us (and the other players) make these days go smoothly by being sensible with your behaviour. While we appreciate the enthusiasm of the people who turn up the day before and sit around hitting refresh, this really just slows things down and makes the release more difficult for everyone. We will be setting up a Discord server for people to chat during the pre-release wait so as to ease the traffic on the forums, we'd appreciate it if you made good use of this where possible.
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Post by Big Boss Man on Apr 6, 2020 14:52:00 GMT 1
#47: Cinematic style matches
One of the advantages of being a small company is that we can be a lot nimbler than bigger studios, so I've been able to work on a late addition to the game, which is cinematic-style wrestling matches that are shot to resemble movies.
These sort of matches are identified via a fourth addition to the Held In field; on top of the existing three of In Ring, Special Set, and Backstage / Car Park, the new option is On Location [Cinematic]. This simulates matches that are pre-taped earlier in the day in an external environment.
This comes with a few restrictions; these matches are only available on shows that are being broadcast, and if your product doesn't suit them or if your production values are too low then the resulting penalties would make them essentially unusable. This stops tiny companies who wouldn't have the resources to do them from exploiting them.
Using one of these match types brings about the following special adjustments:
- Gimmick ratings for the protagonists have a more pronounced impact than normal, and these apply even if the user has turned gimmick effects off from their preferences menu; this means that you really have to have strong characters for them to work well, just like in reality.
- The match rating is impacted by the company's production values; Professional and High Quality are neutral and do not represent a plus or minus, but lower than that brings about increasingly severe penalties and above those levels brings some bonuses.
- Stamina, injury, and a botch penalties are all disabled due to the option of editing them out.
- The match automatically has a bigger swing in terms of randomness; this simulates the fact that there's a very fine line between doing these sort of matches well and them just being a mess.
In all other ways the matches follow the normal rules. The reason for this is that I didn't want to make this very restrictive; if you want to make a cinematic style match that is highly technical, or involves a cage, or is an eye candy match...that's all fine, you can do that. This therefore opens up a lot of creative avenues, which I think is a lot more interesting than making this effectively just be "you have to make it a brawl between OTT gimmicks".
I haven't time-locked these sort of matches, as my thinking is that although they didn't start happening until very recently, there's no particular reason why they couldn't have started earlier. So if a player decides they want to start doing these in a 1980s scenario, that's entirely up to them.
I've also decided not to have any sort of penalty on how often you can use these. The reason for this is that I know some people will probably like to try doing a company where every match is very cinematic and I didn't want to limit that option for them.
(NB As I know that at least one person will ask, I'll clarify now that although this is pre-taped content, no, you cannot use this to tape segments days / weeks / months in advance to get around booking clashes. That (obviously) would involve enormous changes to how the scheduling and booking systems work.)
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Post by ScotKen on Apr 6, 2020 16:48:10 GMT 1
"One of the advantages of being a small company is that we can be a lot nimbler than bigger studios, so I've been able to work on a late addition to the game, which is cinematic-style wrestling matches that are shot to resemble movies." - I'm just at a complete loss, removes absolute staples of the industry and then adds something that's happened about 5 times ever.
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