Total Extreme Wrestling 2016

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Mar 07: Mix Of Match Aims

Based on their products, companies have minimum requirements for including different match aims to keep the crowd entertained. For example, a light-hearted Chikara-style company would naturally expect at least one Comedy match aim per show.

This introduces two new elements into play.

The first is that it adds a further element of strategy to booking. If you know that you're going to need a Comedy match and a Technical Masterclass on each show then you will need to think carefully about how you're deploying your roster as not everyone can thrive in those sort of bouts. This also has the knock-on effect of making sure that cards actually have content that's in-line with their product. For example, real life WWE cards are generally geared towards having a mix of content, with some action-packed matches, some 'comedy' (NB: I'm using some terminology extremely loosely at this point), some divas, some storyline-driven matches, etc, etc. If their product is set up to reflect this, the booker will need to keep that in mind.

The second element is roster diversity. In previous games, going all the way back to the EWR days, there's not a huge incentive to go for anyone other than the good workers - leading to the old meme where 95% of players using WWE\F used to hire AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels on day one because talent always won out. This doesn't really reflect reality where a diverse roster is almost always a good thing. Again taking WWE as an example, there's always a place for comedy acts, for the odd 'freak show' worker, midgets, etc, etc. By introducing match aims, you now have an actual reason to bring in people who aren't necessarily the best workers in the world, so that you can fill that Comedy match aim slot, so that you can throw in some 'Eye Candy', etc.

NB: The Analysis button shows your current match aim requirements, so you don't have to remember them or constantly go back to the product screen to check.

Mar 07: Perfect Show Theory Overhaul

As Perfect Show Theory appeared to confuse a lot of players in previous games it has now been overhauled to be less rigid by tapping into the new match aim system.

PST (which can still be turned off if you wish) now works like a pressure gauge; if the fans are kept 'up' for too long then they'll burn out and be hard to recover. Careful use of calming match aims (such as Calm The Crowd), or mixing up different match aims to keep the fans on their toes, is therefore needed to avoid this (or to 'relieve the pressure' if you want to continue the analogy). As a lot of the match aims are explicit about bringing the crowd up or down (or at specifically about manipulating the crowd level in other ways) this takes a lot of the guesswork out of the feature and instead makes it more about booking order and forward planning, as you'd do in reality.

To reflect the above changes, Perfect Show Theory has been renamed as Crowd Management in TEW2016.

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Mar 08: Sausage Fest Penalty

My favourite named feature ever, the sausage fest penalty means that mainstream \ entertainment based companies (other than those that are dedicated to female wrestling) are now required to hit a certain ratio of attractive women to male competitors per show or they will get a penalty for not appealing to their core male audience.

This is a companion piece to yesterday's feature in that it's aim is to make players follow reality a little more closely. In previous games there was virtually no point in having attractive women on the roster (other than if you were gaming the system by spamming T-shirt shooting angles to get high ratings), which is of course not how reality works - WWE\F, WCW, ECW, NWA...pretty much everyone has had a number of attractive women on their roster, even if they had little use other than standing around looking pretty, for the simple reason that sex sells. By having this potential penalty in place, the player will now have to follow suit and maintain some on the roster.

To clarify, these are not female wrestlers, nor do they actually have to be actively in angles; just have someone work as a manager counts, even if all they are doing is accompanying someone to the ring for a match or angle, even if that's only a few minutes of time.

Mar 08: EWR Throwback Options (x7)

With this being the 20th anniversary of the EW series, one of the big things we're looking at is trying to encourage those people who haven't yet made the switch from the freeware games to do so. As the most common reason given is that the game is too complex \ detailed \ time consuming, we've added a raft of seven new user preferences to specifically target this. Collectively they've become known as the EWR Throwback options as they allow the game to be switched to become a very open, less restrictive, less realistic experience a la EWR - whether that name will remain post-testing I don't know, but for now it serves its purpose.

These are primarily to encourage new players, but I'm sure even some of the veterans of TEW will be able to get some use out of them now and then.

The seven are all on\off toggles, and are as follows:

Booking times: If turned off, the length of the show is ignored entirely, allowing the player to book as little or as much as he wants. i.e. if it's a two hour show, you could book 5 minutes or 5 hours and the game isn't going to penalise or block you.

Match ratios: If turned off, the player does not need to worry about the match \ angle ratio of shows. The player could not have any angles at all, even for an entertainment-based company, if desired.

Left off show complaints: If turned off, workers never complain about being left off shows. This removes the need to plan ahead and make sure that everybody has something to do.

Match aims: If turned off, the player does not need to meet the minimum number of match aims per show that are required by the product. (Match aims can still be used, it's just the requirement that is turned off.)

Momentum: If turned off, worker momentum effects are disabled. This means there are no effects on match ratings and no complaints about it. They are still stored and visible however, so if you wish to turn the feature back on you do not need to start from scratch.

Sex appeal: If turned off, the sausage fest penalty that was described above is disabled entirely.

Worker overuse: If turned off, there are no penalties for using a worker too much during a show. You can throw a jobber out there for an iron man match and won't get a penalty for it (although you would still of course have to deal with the poor match rating that would likely result; it's just the post-show penalty of 'You used X far too much on this show' that is turned off).

As with all the user preferences, these can be turned on and off via the options menu and only apply to the specific player - so it's perfectly OK for one player to have them all turned off, another player to have them all off, and another player to pick and choose a selection to turn off.

When combined with the other user preferences that already exist, this allows a huge scope for removing a lot of the complexity and realism from the game and turning it from a sim-game to a fantasy-game instead.

GDS Forum schrieb:

Time for a themed day, I think...

Mar 09: Botches

Previously the Safety skill didn't really do much in the game; to rectify this, the game now introduces botched moves. Workers with low Safety ratings will run the risk of botching moves and potentially injuring their opponents. (NB: This is separate from regular injuries, which are still linked to the Resilience skill.) Very occasionally even skilled opponents may get a freak accident and botch a move.

As well as potential injuries, botches (and even near botches) can lead to negative relationships between the workers involved and potential morale issues. On top of this, even people not involved in the match can react; for example, veterans may get irate about a clumsy rookie being 'reckless'.

This also makes dealing with rookies and clumsy workers more of a challenge in the long run.

If a botch does happen you will read about it on-screen, as well as getting an e-mail if there is any fall-out from it.

Mar 09: Refusal To Work With Botchers

Mirroring the real life Austin - Owen Hart situation, workers who get injured thanks to a botched move can refuse to work with that person again. This is dependent on their personality and the severity of the injury.

Mar 09: Injury History

Accessing a worker's profile and viewing the Physical screen will now list all the injuries that worker has suffered during the course of their career, together with the date of when it happened. This includes any pre-existing injuries that were added via the editor before the game began.

This allows you to get a better idea of exactly how injury prone a worker is, and where the damage may have been done in terms of body parts.

Mar 09: Botch History

As an addition to the previous entry, the injury history will also record and list if the injury occured due to a botched move. If so, the botcher's name will be displayed too, so that you know who was at fault.

Mar 09: Injury Notes

In previous games you would only find out about injuries via an e-mail after the show. This has now been altered so that you'll be able to see on-screen when an injury happens. It's a minor touch, but it helps the immersion.

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Mar 10: Singles Titles In Tag Matches

New to the game is the ability to have singles titles put on the line in tag team bouts. If used, the title will change hands if the current holder is beaten (i.e. is the person taking the fall), being won by the person who beat them. The title does not change hands if someone other than the champion is beaten (unless the title was vacant). This allows some real world situations to be simulated.


Mar 10: More Titles Per Match

The number of titles allowed per match has been upped from two to three. This allows, for example, the tag team champions to defend against two singles champions.

Mar 10: Player's Handbook

I already alluded to this in a reply in the discussion thread, but work has been done to make TEW2016 as user friendly as possible in terms of explaining how things work.

The primary source of this is the Player's Handbook. This is found in the office, and replaces the Booker's Advice button. This works as an in-game help file, divided up into topics and giving detailed explanations about the mechanics. Unlike its predecessor, this is less about general tips and more about precise details. For example, in the angles section it gives specifics on how many minutes angles need to run for to allow workers to benefit from them, what skills the different Rated On categories use, and how workers' popularity is altered by them.

The idea behind this is to address as many of the questions that crop up in the Small Questions thread as possible. As everything is divided into topics, it should be easy to navigate straight to your answer if you have something specific in mind. The reason we've moved the help file in-game rather than as the more traditional external document is that not only is it easier to get to, but it means it can be updated via patches very easily; so if any new questions appear, or if there's something that people are finding unclear, a new topic or more detailed answer can be patched right in.

As well as the Handbook, there are also more "?" buttons than ever before to explain specifics, and many of the road agent notes that seemed to confuse people have had their descriptions beefed up to be explicit about what their pros and cons are and how they should be used. Again, this includes specific like exactly how many minutes you need \ can't exceed in order to get bonuses or avoid penalties.

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Mar 11: Expanded Production

The production department now contains four new areas: Production Values, Broadcast Quality, Music and Live Event Experience.

Production values are things like sets, entrance ways, professional video editing capabilities, etc. Broadcast Quality is the crew and equipment used to shoot the shows, i.e. things like HDTV. Music covers all the licensing of music used for entrances, videos, etc. Live Event Experience is the event crew who organise and run the shows in regards to fans, for example organising the seating, organising VIP packages, etc. Some of these elements mean a monthly ongoing cost, some are done per show, and some are a combination of both; the costs are dependent on the level used. All costs are clearly shown on screen when selecting levels.

These have two major impacts on the game.

The first is in relation to your rivals (NB: a rival is any company of similar size in the same game area, except for International and Global companies where it is a company of similar size anywhere in the world) - if you hold a show and are running any of the elements at a lower level than them, you will get a penalty to your overall show grade for looking amateurish in comparison.

This opens up a potentially brutal game of cat and mouse with companies being able to raise the stakes to try and force opponents into difficult situations. This is especially true of financial powerhouses who can use their might to make life very difficult for their more cash-strapped opponents. For example, a rich company may decide to up all four of their production elements by two levels; this will make things very expensive for them in the long run but instantly puts a lot of pressure on all their rivals, who are now left with the dilemma of whether to take the same, potentially killer, financial hit or to try to weather the storm and just take the penalties. This of course makes life very tough for companies who lack money, but that's business.

The second major impact is in regard to broadcasters. Every broadcaster has minimum requirements for the first three elements mentioned at the start of the journal. A company that does not meet those requirements each show will annoy them and potentially get kicked off the air if it lasts long enough. This again adds another dilemma, as some companies may get the opportunity to snag a good broadcast deal but need to factor in whether they can meet the requirements without putting themselves under too much pressure.

For ease of use, player's are e-mailed whenever a rival alters their production values in a manner that could potentially cause penalties. The production screen also gives clear on-screen warnings of any potential penalties and includes a View Rivals button that allows you to see exactly what levels your rivals are currently using.

Mar 11: Half Year Awards

As a companion piece to the End Of Year Awards, there is now a half yearly version that comes out during the summer. These sum up the year thus far and give a good indication of who the front runners for each of the full awards are.

Mar 11: Painkillers

A new lifestyle \ habit has been added to the game, painkiller addiction. This can be a very dangerous and disruptive habit to acquire, and normally occurs post-injury. As with the other habits, there are a raft of custom stories and events related to painkiller addiction, and it can impact in-ring performance, reliability, and impacts physical condition and at high levels can shorten a worker's potential life span.

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Mar 14: Screw Jobs

The user can now choose to perform a 'screw job' on one of his employees via the road agent notes. This involves hatching a plan with his opponent whereby the victim believes he is going to be winning the match, only for you to either have a fast count or 'false' submission happen to make him lose.

This risky last resort allows the user to indulge his inner villain and can be useful for taking a belt off someone who doesn't want to do a job...but it may not go down so well with the rest of the locker room.

Mar 14: Injury Frequency

Each injury can now be set to have an individual frequency that sets how likely it is to occur. This allows injuries to be divided up so that some are very common, some very rare, etc, and make things more realistic.

Mar 14: Global Injury Rate

By request, the overall rate of injury across the game world is higher, resulting in more injuries happening. You can still set the general frequency via the Options menu, but all options result in a higher amount than they would in TEW2013.

Mar 14: Extra Injury Rate Setting

The injury rate option now has an additional level, Extreme. This is for users who like to have a lot of injuries in their games.

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Mar 15: More Aggressive AI Hiring & Bids

The AI is now not only far more aggressive at going after top talent but also deliberately trying to snatch away workers from rivals, even when they don't particularly need them, as a way of hurting the competition. Part of this new aggression is that the AI is no longer limited to primarily hiring only when their roster needs it, it can now respond intelligently to what other companies are doing.

On top of this, the AI is now also more aggressive in the way it puts together bids, being willing to push itself further and give more incentives so that it can compete even with human players. This is particularly true of financially powerful companies, who will use their muscle to try and blow away the competition.

These features make for a more dynamic game world, particularly amongst the big companies, with bitter wars over top talent now commonplace.

Mar 15: Nepotism

To reflect reality, owners and head bookers in AI companies are now far more likely to use their positions of power to hire friends and family.

Mar 15: Automated Admin Mode Check

Very minor, but the game can now automatically detect whether there is an admin mode issue and flash up a warning when you open the game. This replaces the old system of simply having a warning for everyone. This will hopefully help stop people accidentally forgetting to put themselves in the right mode.

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Mar 16: Title Changes In Angles

The booker can now allow title changes to happen within angles. This allows many real world situations, such as title vacations, to be simulated without the need to visit the belts screen and do it manually.

Whether an angle allows a title change is set when adding the angle to the database.

Mar 16: Alternate Loading Screens

A new folder called Loading has been added to the Skins folder which can hold any number of custom loading screen designs. When the game starts its between-days loading process it will pick a random file from this folder and use that as the background.

Mar 16: Free Picture Years

The Free Pictures files, used when assigning pictures to freshly generated characters, now includes optional earliest and latest possible dates that restrict when the picture is valid. This allows some pictures to only appear during the appropriate era.

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Alteration

Please note that the March 8th entry, "EWR Throwback Options (x7)" is no longer accurate. Two new preferences have been added, taking the number to nine. They are:

Production effects: If turned off, the player is not penalised if a rival has superior production values, music, etc, not will broadcasters complain if he runs a show with less than the minimum production requirements.

Lifestyle effects: If turned off, a worker's lifestyle (i.e. smoking, drinking, etc) have no impact on the worker's performance during a show. They still retain their wider impact on lifespan, skill changes, etc, however.

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Mar 17: Screwed Up Endings

If a wrestler is injured during a match there is now the chance that the workers will 'call an audible', rebooking the finish of the match themselves on the fly. This doesn't happen often, but when it does it can lead to surprising booking changes that can throw a spanner in the works for a player.

Mar 17: Trademark Spots

Workers can now come up with brand new trademark spots (in matches) or new catchphrases (in angles). When this happens, you are informed on-screen via the road agent.

Trademark spots take multiple forms, including 'hope' spots for babyfaces and visually cool power spots for workers who are very strong. Debuting a new trademark spot gives the worker a one-off boost to one or more of their skills.

A new catchphrase, only available to workers with high charisma, gives the worker a one-off boost to his microphone skills.

Mar 17: Creative Meeting Change

The criteria for some of the sections of the Creative Meeting feature have been relaxed considerably for smaller companies; this stops them ending up with only one or two entries for some categories, as they were prone to do in TEW2013, thus making the feature more useful.

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Mar 18: Development \ Child Split

'Child' companies now have two defined types: Development Territory and Child Company.

A Child Company is how it functioned in TEW2013, basically being self reliant; it can hire its own talent whenever it needs.

A Development Territory is the new method and means that the company is essentially isolated. It cannot hire its own workers, instead being totally dependent on the parent company to stock its roster.

Using the latter option gives the user tighter control, as you're guaranteeing that the roster will only contain people that you want it to have. However, this does put the onus on you to keep an eye on the Dev Territory as if the roster gets too small it won't be able to hold shows and will have no way of dealing with that.

The user can swap between the two options whenever he wants, it's a one click change.

Mar 18: Control Of Development Upgrade

The user now has a much greater degree of control over all his child companies.

Via the new Child Companies button the user can access the following controls: Roster, Schedule, Product, Teams, Titles and TV Controls. In each case, these are almost identical to the version the user has access to for the parent company, meaning you can do the same actions for both. For example, the Schedule screen is literally exactly the same same, so everything you can do for the parent company (changing schedule, adding or modifying events, etc) you can do for the child company too.

There are also two new controls: Staff and Own Broadcaster.

Staff allows you to assign, replace or fire the owner and head booker of the child company. The user has total control of this area, so doesn't have to worry about the AI bringing in a new owner out of the blue - it will always be someone the user specifically went after. Own Broadcaster, as discussed earlier in the journal, allows a parent company that owns its own broadcaster to use it to give the child company air time.

These new options give the user a really fine degree of control over his or her child companies, basically being able to fine tune everything bar the actual booking of shows.

Mar 18: One Night Developmentals

Similar to the already-announced ability to hire a local worker to make a one night only appearance, players who have a development territory now also have the option of calling up any of the workers from there for a one night only appearance. This is done via the booking screen while putting together a show.

As with the Hire Local feature, this is a special one night deal that has them become available for the show and then disappear off the roster without any of the associated blocks or penalties on rehiring. The big advantage to this, as well as ease of use, is that bringing a developmental worker up for one night does not affect his status with the child company; i.e. he does not have to vacate titles, does not lose his contract, does not split up any teams, etc, etc.

This also, of course, helps simulate reality by allowing development workers to be brought up for try outs, to temporarily bulk out the roster if there have been injuries, etc.

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Mar 21: Freestyle Angles

Freestyle angles are an addition to the booking screen that allow ultimate flexibility when it comes to writing your show, being a third way in addition to using pre-existing angles or creating your own custom versions.

The way they work is that you can quickly set up to eight participants, together with what they're rated on, whether they're on screen, and what the result of the angle is (i.e. who gains advantages, who loses out, etc). Essentially it's just like creating your own angle the normal way but without the need to deal with writing actual text or fiddling about with multiple versions to hold different amounts of people.

The advantage of this method is that its quick, involves no searching through the database to find something to suit your needs, and is very flexible. The downsides are that when the angle runs during the show there's no text as to what actually happened, as that only exists in your head. This therefore probably won't be used by those people who like a very tight simulation with exact details, but it should be of benefit to those who are happy to let their imagination fill in the gaps.

Mar 21: Dirty Doctor

Added to the backstage rules, companies can now employ a 'dirty doctor'. This morally ambivelant medico will be on hand backstage and will hand out illegal drugs to whichever workers want them. The spread of steroids has benefits for workers, including better looking bodies and the ability to heal quicker, so it can benefit a company to allow the dirty doctor backstage. However, there is the risk that his work will get rumbled by the media, leading to a potentially huge backlash - particularly if a wrestler who works for the company (or recently did) gets busted for drugs, or worse, ends up dying as a result of them.

Mar 21: Fog Of War By Player

In previous games the Fog Of War worked on a global level, i.e. every player got the same level for each worker. In TEW2016, this has been altered to work on a player level. This means, for example, that a player who has employed a specific worker for a few years will naturally have a better grasp of that worker's skills than another player who has never employed him because he's seeing him up close and personal over a long period of time.

Mar 21: Suspension Delay

When giving a suspension to a worker in PM mode it now takes effect from the end of the show, not immediately as it did before. This way the player can job the worker out before they disappear, which is both more realistic and allows titles to be taken off them first.

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Mar 22: Locker Room Handling

Once the user has handled the incidents that occur at the start of a show he now has access to a special Locker Room Controls section. This gives the ability to use several management techniques, ranging from trying to intimidate people by publicly firing someone in front of the whole locker room to holding a 'clear the air' session where you allow any worker with a beef to have the opportunity to air their problem. Each option has specific potential advantages and disadvantages, usually revolving around keeping control of the backstage area, your image with the workers, and the general atmosphere in the locker room. This allows the user to be proactive about keeping things running smoothly.

Mar 22: Double Show Order

By request, the user now has the option of setting the order of his shows (via the Schedule screen) when he has more than one on the same day. For example, he could choose to run his TV shows after his events, and run them in reverse order of prestige.

Mar 22: Blacklist

Essentially a 'reverse shortlist', the user now has access to a Blacklist where he can put workers who he has no interest at all in. Any worker assigned to the Blacklist will be automatically left out of any search results, lists, etc.

Mar 22: Interventions

The user can now stage a sit-down 'clear the air' meeting with two employees who are not getting along. This could result in them getting along better but could also make the situation worse and possibly get them mad at you for sticking your nose in to their business. This adds another backstage management tool to the user's Arsenal.

GDS Forum schrieb:

We'll do a themed day today; 10 things that directly affect your matches.

Mar 23: Cash Ins

To simulate 'cashing in' there are now Midway Addition and Late Addition road agent notes. These mean that the targetted worker does not wrestle the full match but instead appears either partway through or right before the finish. This obviously penalises their ring work somewhat as there were not fully involved.

These notes allow real world situations to be simulated without the need for a complex set of booking instructions. For example, if you wanted to model the last WrestleMania main event you'd actually book it as a three-way bout to begin with, but have Rollins set as a Late Addition; this way he can be involved only in the finish while the in-ring stuff is primarily handled by the other two. This saves you from having to go the messy route of having a singles match with a no contest ending followed immediately with a short three-way, which would potentially cause a lot of penalties and tank your show rating.

These notes also allow you to indulge your inner Teddy Long and have a singles bout spontaneously turn into a tag bout, simply by booking it as a tag match to begin with but having one partner from each team be listed as a Midway Addition. Again, this makes booking much cleaner as you're not having to make two separate bookings for what is essentially the same bout.

Mar 23: Keep It Simple

A new road agent note, this targets a specific worker and tells them to stick to the basics. This means that the worker has far less chance of botching anything, but naturally also gives a penalty to his ring work due to him being limited. This note is useful for building up green workers slowly or stopping clumsy workers crippling the rest of the roster.

Mar 23: Intentional DQ

A new road agent note, this allows a worker to intentionally get himself disqualified.

Mar 23: Intentional Count Out

A new road agent note, this allows a worker to intentionally get counted out.

Mar 23: Rage DQ

A new road agent note, this allows one worker to get disqualified because he went insane with rage, a la Ken Shamrock.

Mar 23: Eating Up

A selfish wrestler who is the far better worker in the match now has the option of using his advantage to take too much of the match himself, purposely 'eating up' his opponent and ruining the match slightly to make the opponent look worse. This may happen due to a quirk of his personality, because he was having a bad day, or because he just didn't like the other wrestler.

Mar 23: Make Not Break

The counterpoint to Eating Up, generous workers who are booked to win and are in the ring with an opponent who is weaker and lower down the card than them can now intentionally go out of their way to make the opponent look great in defeat, giving them an extra popularity boost and potentially creating a friendly relationship.

Mar 23: Enhanced Match Report Details

The match reports have been enhanced in two ways. Firstly, it can now contain comments on people being carried, who the MVPs were, etc. Secondly, individual performance levels are now noted by the road agent too. This allows the user to get a better sense of who is actually doing the work in a match and who is just coasting along.

Mar 23: Stunt Bumps

A companion note to the Crazy Bump, a Stunt Bump works the same way except that the bump is more controlled (and possibly gimmicked) and is therefore safer (but slightly less spectacular). This would cover, for example, when a guy gets tossed off the stage onto crash mats, with the padding quickly being removed before the cameras get there to give the illusion that it was much more dangerous than it really was.

Mar 23: Better Jobber Matches

By request, the penalty about "the fans were put off by a match between jobbers" no longer applies if the match is safely stowed away in a dark match.