New user confused: How to make a jobber or winner?

[rbx4]

I am completely new to the game, and looking at the manual, I thought it should be predictable enough. If I want to make a jobber who loses a lot, I should give them a low stamina and work rating. If I want to make a wrestler who wins a lot, they should have high values in these. The reverse is so far happening: my worst wrestlers usually defeat my best ones. I'm not sure what to do at this point, having tried 8 matches with results that look too random. The worst one doesn't win 100% of the time, but it wins way too often. I'm not being shy about it: if I want a wrestler to lose nearly all the time, I give it about 30 or 40 in those two stats. If I want one to win nearly all the time, I give it 90 or so.

I have also downloaded Tournament Edition and this is more consistent. I did a 16 wrestler tournament, and #16 wins every match, no matter how many times I repeat them. Wrestler #16 is 50 in skill and 60 in stamina, and always wins versus wrestlers with stats such as 83/90.

[tnmlyger]

If you want to make true jobbers, please give them attribute values of 1 and don't give them a finisher. Please let me know if this helps.

Another thing you can do in TNM 7 SE is to go into Options -> General Options and check the box "Strict Pushes".

The former tells TNM that person is a jobber. The latter puts stronger emphasis on push values than is default.

Wrestlers' performances depend on many different things, and a wrestler with a moveset of high-impact moves will have an advantage against a wrestler with a moveset consisting of mostly low-damage moves.

The seed number in TNM TE just goes off of a combination of each wrestler's attributes. That doesn't automatically mean that #16 will always lose because that would defeat the purpose of even running tournaments. In this program you can click the wheel icon on the main menu and check "Team With The Higher Average Push Usually Wins".

[rbx4]

Thank you for the information, which is very helpful. I want to give the games their best chances while I make a purchase decision. So my new understanding on this is that the importance of the stats are like this:

Setting for push to usually win > impact of moves >> work rating/skill ~ stamina. I don't know how important work rating is in relation to stamina? I think I know what stamina does, but how does work rating/skill affect match performance? Does it affect the chance that a wrestler will get to attempt a move, or succeed at it?

*I've also tried the tournament mode with "Team with the higher average push usually wins" and the results seem unnatural: the better wrestler sometimes wins now, but gets pummeled mercilessly and usually just keeps kicking out until an apparently lucky victory. I would prefer to see a dominating wrestler have a strong advantage versus one that is noticeably worse in all aspects of wrestling. I don't know how to indicate that a wrestler is supposed to be worse-conditioned and not as skilled as another one, but also I don't yet know why the wrestler with lower stats seems to usually have a strong advantage.

To give an old-school example of the kind of thing I'm seeing, imagine that I schedule a match with Paul Orndorff versus Randy Mulkey. I'm using non-real wrestlers instead, but this is a comparison. Given the styles involved, I would expect Orndorff to spend much of the match physically pushing Mulkey around. What I see instead is that the physically dominant wrestler is being pushed around instead, surprisingly. It might be even more accurate to say that maybe I scheduled Orndorff against Steve Lombardi, who would be a bit higher than the Mulkeys, but Lombardi would be winning 75% of the time in dominating ways, still looking dominant in the 25% that are losses.

Again I think it must be something that I'm doing wrong, but I'm just not sure how to make a ~30 stat wrestler lose consistently against a ~85 stat one.

[LillaThrilla]

Jul 3, 2020 7:05:39 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

If you want to make true jobbers, please give them attribute values of 1 and don't give them a finisher.

I assume you mean Push of 1? I would assume a wrestler with Workrate, Push, Stamina, and Charisma of 1 would certainly lose a lot but also produce a lot of really awful matches (negative 4-5 stars).

[tnmlyger]

I'll get back to you on this. Don't want to answer such a thoughtful and substantive post with a two-liner, and I'm too tired to write something proper now.

You aren't doing anything wrong. The match engine was simply not designed to be this restrictive in terms of how the matches play out. More tomorrow :-)

[tnmlyger]

Jul 3, 2020 16:05:46 GMT -5 LillaThrilla said:

Jul 3, 2020 7:05:39 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

If you want to make true jobbers, please give them attribute values of 1 and don't give them a finisher.

I assume you mean Push of 1? I would assume a wrestler with Workrate, Push, Stamina, and Charisma of 1 would certainly lose a lot but also produce a lot of really awful matches (negative 4-5 stars).

From Build 12 on, jobber matches will no longer produce negative ratings.

[tnmlyger]

Jul 3, 2020 12:34:46 GMT -5 rbx4 said:

Setting for push to usually win > impact of moves >> work rating/skill ~ stamina. I don't know how important work rating is in relation to stamina? I think I know what stamina does, but how does work rating/skill affect match performance? Does it affect the chance that a wrestler will get to attempt a move, or succeed at it?

Work rate and stamina aren't directly connected. Stamina influences how much punishment you can take before losing. There are other things it does but this is the main one. Workrate influences how well you are able to perform difficult moves and pull off slick counters. It's also one of the factors that influence how much the crowd enjoys the match and how crisply it is being worked. So in the end it also influences the rating the match gets.

*I've also tried the tournament mode with "Team with the higher average push usually wins" and the results seem unnatural: the better wrestler sometimes wins now, but gets pummeled mercilessly and usually just keeps kicking out until an apparently lucky victory. I would prefer to see a dominating wrestler have a strong advantage versus one that is noticeably worse in all aspects of wrestling. I don't know how to indicate that a wrestler is supposed to be worse-conditioned and not as skilled as another one, but also I don't yet know why the wrestler with lower stats seems to usually have a strong advantage.

I understand what you're saying. TNM's match engine was designed for competitive matches more so than blowouts. I'll be happy to create an option where wrestlers act the way you describe, i.e. exert more dominance in cases of a marked difference in the stats.

To give you a bit of a glimpse into the future: I plan to implement bands like "main eventer", "mid-carder", "opening match talent" and a few others into which you can slot wrestlers. If used, there will be a clear hierarchy in that main eventers will generally dominate mid-carders while mid-carders will generally dominate opening match talent. This has been discussed in our developer group but isn't something that any of us saw as helpful or necessary for a sim which emphasizes casual play and entertainment over longterm planning.

If I end up making a full-blown circuit-based TNM for Windows, this will be the #1 thing that gets done.

Given that this is a major departure from what the philosophy behind the TNM engine has been for the past 20+ years, I need to take a week or two before I can give you a more detailed idea of what I can do in the near term to help you enjoy TNM more.

Again I think it must be something that I'm doing wrong, but I'm just not sure how to make a ~30 stat wrestler lose consistently against a ~85 stat one.

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. We just have diametrically opposed expectations in terms of how the match engine should act. I'm absolutely open to offering a way to have more one-sided matches where they make sense. It's just not something I can do in a matter of days :-)

Thank you for the questions and the suggestion, though. I'll have more on this in a week or two.

[rbx4]

Thanks for the response--yes I think I see what you mean. I'm accustomed to wrestling games being more stats-based, where things like Strength, Speed, etc. together determine who wins, with moves being a potential wildcard in the mix. I admit being fascinated by stats.

In real wrestling, it's push, such that charisma and mic skills come into play and the front office determines the winner even if the wrestler with push has poor wrestling skills or poor physical stats.

I think this game seems to be more move-based, where a wrestler with the best moves is going to win nearly every time, even if that wrestler has no high stats.

[tnmlyger]

Yes, that is correct. The good news there is that I'm halfway through with normalizing that damage dynamically so even if you pick only high-impact moves, it won't give you a competitive advantage.

It's also true that TNM has always been less about stats and more about moves, to the delight of many but also to the detriment of some who do like a more stats-determined experience. My goal with TNM was to come up with creative spots and sequences first and foremost.

I recognize, though, that it would be best to let the user determine whether he wants it to be more stat-dominant or more move-dominant.

Both TNM TE and TNM 7 SE will receive updates before the end of the summer with move normalization in place. There is a good chance that this will alleviate what's bothering you. If you DM me your e-mail address, I'll be happy to supply you with a beta version of that when it's stable.

[rbx4]

I think I see the design goals now. If I could make a suggestion, I think a wrestler's skill could determine if they are able to make those moves or not, or maybe if those moves have the intended effect. Looking at some indy wrestlers where skills can vary a great deal, some can do those moves, but only the good ones can do them as intended. Ones who aren't good enough to do the moves in the throes of a match, just fumble them instead. Also some probably cannot do them safely, such that the other wrestlers and the promotions won't let the wrestler try them in a match.

[tnmlyger]

Alright... I think I've figured out a way to give you the capability to do this which doesn't require weeks of code changes.

I'm adding two new options, "Normalize Damage" and "Scale Damage".

Normalize Damage: All wrestlers in a match will have the damage their moves do scaled to the same average damage as the wrestler with the highest average damage value. This removes the tendency that more recent wrestlers (due to all the hard-hitting moves they do today) will blow out legends.

Example: Roddy Piper has an average damage of 65 in his move set. Kenny Omega has 130. So anything Roddy Piper does to Kenny Omega will have its damage doubled to create a level playing field.

Scale Damage: For every wrestler in a match, the damage their moves do will scale with any gap in the core attributes between the wrestler doing a move and the opponent having the move done to them. This goes a long way towards having the stats mean more for the match outcome.

Example: For clarity, let's just say that we look at the sum of work rate + push + charisma + stamina.

Jon Moxley has 355, Ding Dong #1 has 87. Jon Moxley's moves will do roughly four times the amount of damage that they normally would.

Both will be options so if you don't check them, nothing will change for you.

Without these options, as you said matches between opponents with a wide stat spread are still roughly 50-50.

I ran a series of test by simulating 1,000 matches between Adam Page/Kenny Omega and the Ding Dongs, forcing a clean finish (no DQs, no COs, no draws).

Default settings: Kenny/Hangman took 52 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 48 percent of the matches.

Normalization on: Kenny/Hangman took 63 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 37 percent.

Normalization and scaling on: Kenny/Hangman took 93 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 7 percent.

Personally, I would want to retain the ability of having the odd upset even under those conditions, and I'd be quite happy with a 7 percent chance.

[KWOAOA]

Jul 6, 2020 14:52:47 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

Alright... I think I've figured out a way to give you the capability to do this which doesn't require weeks of code changes.

I'm adding two new options, "Normalize Damage" and "Scale Damage".

Normalize Damage: All wrestlers in a match will have the damage their moves do scaled to the same average damage as the wrestler with the highest average damage value. This removes the tendency that more recent wrestlers (due to all the hard-hitting moves they do today) will blow out legends.

Example: Roddy Piper has an average damage of 65 in his move set. Kenny Omega has 130. So anything Roddy Piper does to Kenny Omega will have its damage doubled to create a level playing field.

Scale Damage: For every wrestler in a match, the damage their moves do will scale with any gap in the core attributes between the wrestler doing a move and the opponent having the move done to them. This goes a long way towards having the stats mean more for the match outcome.

Example: For clarity, let's just say that we look at the sum of work rate + push + charisma + stamina.

Jon Moxley has 355, Ding Dong #1 has 87. Jon Moxley's moves will do roughly four times the amount of damage that they normally would.

Both will be options so if you don't check them, nothing will change for you.

Without these options, as you said matches between opponents with a wide stat spread are still roughly 50-50.

I ran a series of test by simulating 1,000 matches between Adam Page/Kenny Omega and the Ding Dongs, forcing a clean finish (no DQs, no COs, no draws).

Default settings: Kenny/Hangman took 52 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 48 percent of the matches.

Normalization on: Kenny/Hangman took 63 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 37 percent.

Normalization and scaling on: Kenny/Hangman took 93 percent of the matches, the Ding Dongs took 7 percent.

Personally, I would want to retain the ability of having the odd upset even under those conditions, and I'd be quite happy with a 7 percent chance.

I like this option, I know I've brought in a few legends who I thought would make cool tag teams with someone newer and it never works out for that exact same reason the legends get blown away 9 times outta 10... I have the idea of doing a tag team with Papa Shango & Boogeyman however I know that will be one of those incidents where Shango will get blown away by anyone he wrestles and each tag match they will truly hold a distinct disadvantage. So at this time I haven't done that match.. Although in that same thought I also thought about creating the Kliq to see how things would fare against some of the people I have because certain tag teams who I thought would go over well haven't.... But truthfully I always have struggled with the tag team section.

[rbx4]

Thanks for doing this. I think I will adjust my own wrestlers to have moves with damage appropriate to their skills, in order to deal with this in multiple ways.

[LillaThrilla]

Jul 4, 2020 15:02:33 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

Stamina influences how much punishment you can take before losing.

There are really two kinds of Stamina: Toughness (how much damage you can take) and Cardio (how long you can go before getting gassed). In wrestling (and MMA) the guys with the highest Toughness often have the worst Cardio. Ultimate Warrior or various monsters could take a lot of kayfabe damage, but couldn't do a high intensity match without sucking air.

There are some wrestlers who are/were both, like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Mick Foley. Maybe Ciampa or Moxley as a modern example?

So for TNM7 to work as intended, should a guys like Ultimate Warrior have high Stamina to reflect their kayfabe Toughess, low Stamina to reflect their awful cardio, or somewhere in between?

[rbx4]

That's a very interesting point, and I've also heard this about Ultimate Warrior. I'd guess that the effect would be a hit to match quality, because Ultimate Warrior would be too gassed to do some of the more impressive moves until he had taken a "break" by receiving kayfabe damage over a long period of time. While the match would still have twists and turns if push allowed Ultimate Warrior to come back, it wouldn't be as good as when both wrestlers were progressing at about the same rate. In reality, some wrestlers apparently just had short matches with him, because they were not willing to let a seriously gassed wrestler try difficult moves on them.

[BeerGeek]

Jul 8, 2020 8:41:24 GMT -5 LillaThrilla said:

Jul 4, 2020 15:02:33 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

Stamina influences how much punishment you can take before losing.

There are really two kinds of Stamina: Toughness (how much damage you can take) and Cardio (how long you can go before getting gassed). In wrestling (and MMA) the guys with the highest Toughness often have the worst Cardio. Ultimate Warrior or various monsters could take a lot of kayfabe damage, but couldn't do a high intensity match without sucking air.

There are some wrestlers who are/were both, like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Mick Foley. Maybe Ciampa or Moxley as a modern example?

So for TNM7 to work as intended, should a guys like Ultimate Warrior have high Stamina to reflect their kayfabe Toughess, low Stamina to reflect their awful cardio, or somewhere in between?

The overall size (and even the age) of the wrestler also effects a wrestlers stamina too. For example, a wrestler like say.. MJF would obviously have way more stamina than someone like Bastion Booger.

Yes there are exceptions where a larger wrestler may have a lot of stamina despite their size(Vader and Bam Bam Bigelow to name a couple of examples) But for the most part, a smaller guy would GENERALLY have more.

[LillaThrilla]

Mulling this over on my background processors, I'm inclined to think Stamina should be what it sounds like - cardio, how quickly they lose energy. Once their energy gets low, the match rating will start to suffer if the match keeps going. Maybe their moves do less damage and they have trouble hitting power moves.

"Hit Points" would be a hit formula calculated based on Stamina, Push, Height and Weight (bigger dudes have more HP), and Physique (a muscular guy has more than an obese guy who has more than a lean guy).

Yokozuna is going to have low Stamina so don't make him do a 30 minute singles match. But he's going to still have high hit points because he's got a high push, high weight, and a big physique.

Daniel Bryan will have above average hit points from his Push and Stamina, but his low weight and smaller physique will mean he still has less hit points than big dudes like Hogan or Yokozuna.

I think TNM7 might already do this to some degree. Oliver will set us straight I'm sure.

[tnmlyger]

Jul 8, 2020 8:41:24 GMT -5 LillaThrilla said:

Jul 4, 2020 15:02:33 GMT -5 tnmlyger said:

Stamina influences how much punishment you can take before losing.

So for TNM7 to work as intended, should a guys like Ultimate Warrior have high Stamina to reflect their kayfabe Toughess, low Stamina to reflect their awful cardio, or somewhere in between?

If you'd like to make that differentiation, I'd approach this in a different way in cases like the Warrior: by using the "Hard to Pin" and "Hard to Submit" flags, and I'd combine those with a lower stamina value.

I didn't intend for this differentiation to be made so this is the closest thing to getting there.

[tnmlyger]

Jul 12, 2020 16:13:33 GMT -5 LillaThrilla said:

"Hit Points" would be a hit formula calculated based on Stamina, Push, Height and Weight (bigger dudes have more HP), and Physique (a muscular guy has more than an obese guy who has more than a lean guy).

I think TNM7 might already do this to some degree. Oliver will set us straight I'm sure.

No reason to set you straight when you.... nailed it ;-)

I don't want to list everything that goes into this because it takes away a bit of the mystique so I'll leave out the details but these are the rough strokes:

There really are a ton of things that influence your hit points (to stay within that verbiage), and your stats are a part of the equation, as are your height/weight/build, whom you are facing, your own history in that circuit, previous matches (for instance if had just been put through the wringer) and more. Even how your styles and those of your opponent match up influences this. As do nagging pre-injuries.

During the match itself, things like hulking up, having the crowd be really into the match and the overall flow also boost hit points on-the-fly.