Hey everyone, been following the progress for a while now, just pre-ordered and signed up for forums.
I have one suggestion:
There should be some setting that would allow for a long classic match. I am talking about an old fashion All Japan type long match with lots of near falls. It seems like in most games the guys just don't take enough punishment (player or cpu). The closest I have seen is King of Colosseum, but you still have to carry a guy and "arrange" close falls to set up a long match.
Perhaps everyone's energy can get some sort of an extra boost for title matches (both guys are pumped for big match and have more to give), and possibly the crowd reaction can give both guys extra energy late if the match is good...
I'm all in favour of doing everything possible to make this game a simulation instead of a padded-out arcade game. You'd have to make it harder for players to perform power moves and high-risk attacks, lower the rate at which downed wrestlers recover and make submission holds last longer to make "long matches" feel right; quite a few games just give wrestlers more health and lower the damage settings.
This has been one of my major and most-voiced gripes since day one. There should atleast be the option to make matches go longer, via more damage being needed to pin/submission an opponent with finality.
I had a great simmed match a few days ago in Fire Pro R between Riki Choshu and Gen'ichiro Tenryu (just because they were both A/S Rank/Charisma grade), where at about 19 and a half minutes, Choshu CRITICAL'ed GT (a passing-out situation, a la Bret/Austin WM13, in kayfabe) with a Sasorigatame (Sharpshooter for the uninitiated) following a Lariat. The match itself leading up to it was AWESOME to watch. Their long-match logics were programmed expertly, imho.
I'd like to see this addressed of course, but I don't know if just making guys more powerful or have more stamina is the right choice. If you've ever tried the 'better matches' code for NM that somebody hacked a while ago, you might understand what I'm saying. Sure, those matches go on forever, but jesus christ they are awful matches. I mean, I'm really not interested in having a match where a guy kicks out of 40 finishers just because people have a thing for nearfalls. I'm thinking more along the lines of have things slowed down a bit. Like if you think in terms of No Mercy, No Mercy is gaged by the ability to get a special and hit it on your opponent. I'm sure most of us can agree that our best matches in NM/VPW2 were the matches that we would hold back on the specials and bigger moves and use a bit of a slower build. The easiest way to help that out would be, in those games, to slow down the spirit meter.
You have to balance out really long matches with a sizable move list to avoid repetitiveness. Near falls are pretty exciting though but the problem is after people play the game for a while they just know when they can get the 3 count and don't try for a pin until they know it is over. You could introduce some randomness to the game such that when a wrestler is vulnerable to actually losing he could randomly kick out of a near fall. It could be a Call of Duty 4 style perk that you could assign in CAW. Say you call the perk "Near Fall" and it would give your CAW the ability to randomly kick out of pins even if he is beaten beyond the point of functionality.
Stone Cold (the kayfabe ability to never tap no matter how bad the submission, then finally lose via pass-out, and still retain backstage reputation...maybe even increase it) - in a match, this results in Extra Stamina During Submission if your overall damage is at critical point. Eyebrow (the equivalent to FPW's "Stardom") - taunting before a Signature or Finisher increases damage to 1.5 times its damage level (which is already increased from standard because it's signified as a Sig or a Fin) Barrel Chest (FINALLY, a LEGITIMATE use for the ridiculous blocking pose from No Mercy!) - Weak and Medium Strikes do even less damage when blocking, small-percentage chance of no-selling a Hard Strike or Head Drop move.
Vital reversal- if you're damaged beyond a certain point, and you've put up a good enough fight, you have a good chance of reversing a big move, or escaping a standing submission if the crowd is on your side.
Strike battle- Two tired wrestlers get crowd boosts for exchanging certain blows, like in several Japanese matches.
Vital comeback- Tired wrestler may get a stamina boost and crowd pop if being hit (possibly with some sort of taunt involved), useful for "Hulking out".
Hot tag- self-explanatory.
Heel abilities (all self-explanatory):
Concealed foreign object Heel manager Attacking before the bell Heel heat
These suggestions have probably already been thought of, but I think they're nonetheless useful for well worked matches.
Vital reversal- if you're damaged beyond a certain point, and you've put up a good enough fight, you have a good chance of reversing a big move, or escaping a standing submission if the crowd is on your side.
Strike battle- Two tired wrestlers get crowd boosts for exchanging certain blows, like in several Japanese matches.
Vital comeback- Tired wrestler may get a stamina boost and crowd pop if being hit (possibly with some sort of taunt involved), useful for "Hulking out".
Hot tag- self-explanatory.
Heel abilities (all self-explanatory):
Concealed foreign object Heel manager Attacking before the bell Heel heat
These suggestions have probably already been thought of, but I think they're nonetheless useful for well worked matches.[/quote]
I actually love all of these. The system could even be implemented very similar to the way the icon system in Madden is.
[quote][cite] Ugandan Threadkiller:[/cite]Undertaker sit-up would be a cool ability[/quote] A cool abilyti would be an ability to untie your shoe before a anclelock like Eddie(R.I.P.) in Wrestlemania XX
But then wouldn't you just not ankle lock him? Or maybe thats the idea, render yourself un-ankle lockable. I demand the ability to drop my tights to put off potential German or belly to belly suplexes. Apart from to Kanyon of course.