Ticker Replacements

[Guest]

my issue is with learning speed. it does not need to be increased. i repeat, DOES NOT need to be increased. here's why:

 

the issue:

one of the main things that drives older players from this game is the fact that fighters become boring to manage. it's that simple. they learn fast for awhile and then they slow down. that's when the boring part comes in. after fighters get to a certain point they more or less become "pure fighters". the training just moves so slow that it's hard to get daily enjoyment from it.

 

the problem:

it takes so long to build a fighter, ppl are hesitant to release their older fighters. that's why you see so many rosters that have nothing but these old, crusty, worn out fighters. ppl dont want to get rid of an older fighter when they know how long it'll take to build another fighter up to that level. so they kind of get locked into a situation where they must go down with the ship so to speak.

 

so we need to think less about learning speed, and more about fighter turnover. in this game now, there's a terrible case of "hurry up and wait". what i mean by that is fighters gain skills a lot faster than they gain age. so they end up maxing their skills out long before they max their age out. so that only emphasizes the boring stage of a fighters career where training isnt really that important, and keeps them peaking a lot longer than they should. logging in daily to check your training progress is no longer necassary. simply set sliders and wait...

 

the solution:

in my opinion, we need to keep learning speed the same as it is, but INCREASE the rate at which fighters age. by doing that, you will indirectly be speeding up the learning speed.

 

example:

a fighter trains 500 times by the time he's 30 years old and manages to have 2500 skill points and it takes 2 years to do it

 

30 years old

2 years real life time

500 sessions

2500 skill points

 

now take that same fighter and cut the training:aging ratio in half...

 

30 years old

1 year real life time

250 sessions

2500 skill points

 

the reasoning:

by doing that, you increase fighter turnover and you speed up training by making each session equally more effective. there's no need to speed training up if you dont plan on speeding up aging. you'd just be quantifying the problem of fighters reaching max skills too fast. there should always be a peak for fighters where training is less important. but it shouldnt dominate the majority of a fighters career. the building stage should be the majority. but it shouldnt take 2 years either...

 

by increasing aging speed, therefore increasing fighter turnover, you solve the problem of ppl managing stagnant rosters and newer players being caught so far behind. if we can create an atmosphere where rosters are more frequently being revamped, then that offers many more oppurtunities for new players to blend into the game faster. allowing new players more opportunities to become apart of the game should be a goal. i mean think about it..what is better? a single elevator going to the top, and then back down....or MULTIPLE elevators going to the top, and then back down? which accomodates more ppl? you want to create a more continuous flow of fighters going to the top, instead of the scattered waves that we have now.

 

 

but i've wandered a bit so i'll wrap it up. my point is, revamping your roster should be an exciting idea. ppl should be ENCOURAGED to create new fighters. keeping a continuously evolving vibrant roster should be a goal. that's how you keep the game fresh. that's how you keep ppl sucked in. you got to keep them looking ahead, with optimism.

 

ppl are more likely to hang around if they feel like the future is a clean slate, rather than just more of the same

[Guest]

basically to sum up what i wrote above, the aging:learning ratio should go from 1:1 to 2:1. that would solve a lot of issues. increase aging rate and leave learning rate the same

[MMATycoon]

Mike, you've stated before that the difference from elite to sensational is pretty minimal - that we (the managers) put far too much into a skill level. If that's true, why the need for an immediate reduction if over 80% in total skill? My whole point in my "quick fix" was to impliment the behind the scenes cap (which I understand you're doing), and then allow those fighters to be phased out via the addition of the injury thing. If the 80% is of such great and immediate importance, just push all of the fighters down to that level. Doesn't that also "fix" the ground game by reducing skills and allowing for more varied fighters?

If you think it would be OK to leave people above 80% and then cap everyone currently under 80% at 80%, then you're crazy because people would just fundamentally not accept that for one second. It's just not an option.

 

No one is against killing two birds with one stone, Mike. I just fail to see how adding two skills does anything to help the ground game.

It's been explained how it helps about 20 times in this thread.

 

Your earlier point was that fighters at 90% skill level are too good in everything, so that has essentially killed the ground game.

That's not what's been said at all. There are several factors at play that can be improved with the ground game and they are not solely to do with total skill levels.

 

Well, doesn't an overall skill reduction from 90% to 80% do the same thing?

No, it's not the same at all. Adding certain new skills would fundamentally improve the ground game whether we had a problem with people being over skilled or not.

 

I thought adding two new skills was just a way of getting fighters to that 80% level? If that's the case, you're throwing two stones and hitting the same (already dead) bird.

 

One other thing - if we want fighters over 80% to decline, can't we have ultra-accelerated tickers for those fighters that bring them down?

 

 

Sorry but we can't just keep repeating the same things over and over. It's been explained why it helps the ground, why it's better than just cutting skills but we're just wasting time repeating things over and over again if the only criticism or countering that we're getting is "I don't get it and I don't see why it's any better." Just please read the multiple posts explaining the difference and why it's better and please accept that it's just not possible to cap some people at 80% and let other people just happily sit above that level.

[PBR]

Mike, you've stated before that the difference from elite to sensational is pretty minimal - that we (the managers) put far too much into a skill level. If that's true, why the need for an immediate reduction if over 80% in total skill? My whole point in my "quick fix" was to impliment the behind the scenes cap (which I understand you're doing), and then allow those fighters to be phased out via the addition of the injury thing. If the 80% is of such great and immediate importance, just push all of the fighters down to that level. Doesn't that also "fix" the ground game by reducing skills and allowing for more varied fighters?

 

 

 

 

No one is against killing two birds with one stone, Mike. I just fail to see how adding two skills does anything to help the ground game. Your earlier point was that fighters at 90% skill level are too good in everything, so that has essentially killed the ground game. Well, doesn't an overall skill reduction from 90% to 80% do the same thing? I thought adding two new skills was just a way of getting fighters to that 80% level? If that's the case, you're throwing two stones and hitting the same (already dead) bird.

 

One other thing - if we want fighters over 80% to decline, can't we have ultra-accelerated tickers for those fighters that bring them down?

 

i see mikes point on not capping fighters below 80 -- for instance i have a fighter in mid 20's well above the 80% and one in early 20's almost at 80% is it right for that early 20's fighter to never reach the mid 20's guy? both have a long time still left to fight --- on ultra accelerated tickers for those over 80 what is the difference between that and just cutting back to 80% -- especially when tickers is what has caused this issue mainly (most crying over them) -- easiest thing would be if everyone just agreed to take the cut then no new skills would have to be added and could just adjust ref stand ups making fighters work their way up instead of controlling for stand up -- mike is just trying to find a common ground where most will be happy thus the reason for adding two skills so no fighters take a cut overnight

[minark]

I agree with whatever gets chosen.

basically to sum up what i wrote above, the aging:learning ratio should go from 1:1 to 2:1. that would solve a lot of issues. increase aging rate and leave learning rate the same

 

While I see what you're saying, this does speed up training speed. It takes half the sessions to get to the same amount of skill points in half the time it normally would take. I know you're saying the learning rate compared to age is the same, but for real life time, it doubles the learning speed and cuts shelf life of a fighter in half.

 

Interesting idea but it really doesn't cover a lot of aspects of what Mike is trying to fix.

 

 

 

 

And Mike, I was just curious if we added transitioning and escapes, what's the plan for referee stand ups? Because like Chris said, if stand ups don't get fixed he'll just bypass escapes and hold control and let the referee stand them up which really solves nothing in the long run. I know you said they can be fixed if we just decide, but I was curious what the fix was. Do away with referee stand ups? Decrease them vastly?

 

**Edit - And just as a side note, my vote would go towards adding 2 new skills. I like transitioning much better than I like the idea of locks and chokes or whatever the idea may have been and I've liked the idea of escapes since it was first introduced. I also have no problem with cutting straight to 80% but I think adding 2 new skills and helping out the ground game is better at this point.

 

As far as letting people stay at 90%, I've always preferred the idea of fighter diversity. Being that highly skilled just means you're literally amazing at everything and it's exccessive in my opinion. As for in real life, there are many elite fighters at certain aspects, but elite in every area? I just don't see one. I can admit that there are a few who are elite in three areas or so, but I wouldn't say that many. Maybe five if I give some benefit of the doubt I guess.

[Guest]

And just as a side note, my vote would go towards adding 2 new skills. I like transitioning much better than I like the idea of locks and chokes or whatever the idea may have been and I've liked the idea of escapes since it was first introduced. I also have no problem with cutting straight to 80% but I think adding 2 new skills and helping out the ground game is better at this point.

 

As far as letting people stay at 90%, I've always preferred the idea of fighter diversity. Being that highly skilled just means you're literally amazing at everything and it's exccessive in my opinion. As for in real life, there are many elite fighters at certain aspects, but elite in every area? I just don't see one.

 

+1

[MMATycoon]

Regarding solving standups, it's a complex system at the moment - I'm sure we can tweak it to be much more effective. I had a look at it the other day and I didn't really have time to re-learn it but you can just assume that we can fix standups and don't let that be a deterrent to bringing in any other improvements.

[Warwynd]

Regarding solving standups, it's a complex system at the moment - I'm sure we can tweak it to be much more effective. I had a look at it the other day and I didn't really have time to re-learn it but you can just assume that we can fix standups and don't let that be a deterrent to bringing in any other improvements.

 

Works for me.

[Rambo]

And Mike, I was just curious if we added transitioning and escapes, what's the plan for referee stand ups? Because like Chris said, if stand ups don't get fixed he'll just bypass escapes and hold control and let the referee stand them up which really solves nothing in the long run. I know you said they can be fixed if we just decide, but I was curious what the fix was. Do away with referee stand ups? Decrease them vastly?

 

 

That's the problem. Ref stand ups aren't necessarily broken, there's managers that know how to counter certain ground tactics and people forget that there's hiddens that come into play that appear just as important to the ground game as some hiddens are to the stand up game. People also don't take into consideration the impact that energy has on ground productivity. Only difference is when you're on the ground, few bad rolls and the ref may intervene, and in the stand up, well you just stand there but the ref doesn't get involved so you don't notice. Most people's problems with the ground game stem from their obliviousness to what makes it tick. Like all fighting aspects of this game, it isn't just stats that make it effective. Sliders + Hiddens are equally important.

[JLP]

That's the problem. Ref stand ups aren't necessarily broken, there's managers that know how to counter certain ground tactics and people forget that there's hiddens that come into play that appear just as important to the ground game as some hiddens are to the stand up game. People also don't take into consideration the impact that energy has on ground productivity. Only difference is when you're on the ground, few bad rolls and the ref may intervene, and in the stand up, well you just stand there but the ref doesn't get involved so you don't notice. Most people's problems with the ground game stem from their obliviousness to what makes it tick. Like all fighting aspects of this game, it isn't just stats that make it effective. Sliders + Hiddens are equally important.

 

Have to agree with this. Most ground fighters are successful early on due to aggression and sub spamming which works against fighters lacking in ground skills. Later on, when you have any kind of ground skills at all it is so easy to thwart the sub-spammers and ultra-aggressive ground fighters. Shortfuse was talking about this a few days ago and his thoughts on the subject were spot-on in my opinion.

[shortfuse122829]

I give up on defending my position on the ground game. I get around ref stand ups easily enough, and since all my fighters have ground skills now...making it easier to keep ppl on the ground only works to my benefit so i will just shut up.

[Stu_Pidasol]

People need to remember with the stat reduction of fighters you are no longer going to be great at everything.. You'll need to make a choice in build which again is going to make a massive difference

[Guest]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/30607126.jpg

[Guest]

I agree with whatever gets chosen.

 

 

While I see what you're saying, this does speed up training speed. It takes half the sessions to get to the same amount of skill points in half the time it normally would take. I know you're saying the learning rate compared to age is the same, but for real life time, it doubles the learning speed and cuts shelf life of a fighter in half.

 

Interesting idea but it really doesn't cover a lot of aspects of what Mike is trying to fix.

i was responding to the discussion a few pages ago about learning speed. so i wanted to clarify that speeding up the learning wasnt a good idea. speeding up the rate of aging was actually the correct move to make.

 

as far as it not pretaining to what mike wants to do, i think that increasing aging rate actually does pretain to what mike wants to do. the reason why we are even having this discussion right now is because all the fighters at the top arent leaving the game. they just acquire all these skills in the first 1/5th of their career and then just set there...if fighters peaked for a shorter length of time then it wouldnt be as much of the same skills vs same skills. it would be eventually, but only once you reached the top level. if a fighter fought 20 fights in his career and the first 15 he was still building his skills (ex 71%v67%), then only the last 5 fights he fought would really be at his 80% peak (80%v80%). then he'd start declining.

 

but you see what im saying? if a fighter fights from 18 to 35 and he hits 80% (his peak) at age 24, then that means he continues to peak for 11 more years lol. is that the way it should be? ppl can say what they want, but 80% vs 80% still comes down to hiddens. so in my opinion that doesnt fix anything. if you want to have diversified fights then you need to increase the time that fighters are in the building stage and shorten the time that fighters are in the 80% peak stage.

 

i wouldnt even have the 80% rule honeslty. i'd have it the way it is now where you train as high as you can get, and cap it by old age. no hard or soft caps or artificial barriers. just a race against time. speed up aging to the point that you'll retire from old age before you can reach 100% in all skills. so you go after what skills you value the most and that's that.

 

in order to do that, you've got to eliminate the weighted training system we have now. as long as training gets slower the higher you get to the top then you're always going to have evened out fighters. that's just the way it is. that should be the 1st thing to change because that's the biggest hinderence in the game right now when you consider fighter diversity.

 

but whatever happens, the bottomline is that the ages on this game dont correspond with the ages of fighters in real life. that's all that im saying

[soyster89]

People need to remember with the stat reduction of fighters you are no longer going to be great at everything.. You'll need to make a choice in build which again is going to make a massive difference

Totally agree with you, Stu. This is why I felt like a skill reduction would be fine as opposed to adding two new skills. But I'm very outnumbered in my opinion, so I'll roll with the population's voice.

[Showdown]

Totally agree with you, Stu. This is why I felt like a skill reduction would be fine as opposed to adding two new skills. But I'm very outnumbered in my opinion, so I'll roll with the population's voice.

 

I think he should do what he wants, instead of going by what 10 people on the forums say. Do what you think is best, Mike!

 

The skill cap idea seems fine to me. Even though I supported tickers, they make me more anxious than if we didn't have to worry about them at all. So when he said he was just gonna do a skill cap instead, I was actually a lot more relieved and happy than I thought I would be. Then the uproar came and now we have this clusterfuck of ideas from all over the place. If I had the choice, I would take the straight 80% skill cap, cut everybody down to 80% (sorry Chris and Lance!) and leave the number of skills alone.

[MMATycoon]

Just taking the adding of two skills as a separate point. Do people not think that having these two extra skills in the form of transitions and escapes makes the game better in itself? In itself I do mean when combined with a skill cap, so that people have to pick and choose between a wider variety of skills.

[Showdown]

Just taking the adding of two skills as a separate point. Do people not think that having these two extra skills in the form of transitions and escapes makes the game better in itself?

 

My simple answer: Not really.

 

I think there are already enough skills, they cover everything pretty good and the fight engine and strategy works pretty good overall the way it is now. I don't think it's worth the extra time for you to program new skills, when you could use that time to implement the 80% cap and whatever other aging affects and stuff you want, and then move on to other things like the arena stuff you mentioned or maybe working on nutrition or clothing or just anything else you think needs improvement.

 

That said, adding a couple new skills wouldn't hurt anything and would give people more choices for what to train in. If you really wanted, you could split skills up a lot like "body punches", "head punches" etc, and just go crazy with like 50 different skills and then just have NO CAP at all. Probably would take a long time to program and not really be better, but I guess it's an option in the long run, if you wanted.

 

When it comes down to it, my vote would be to make an 80% cap, cut people down, and don't add any more skills (your original proposal). But I also wouldn't complain if the skills are added and then an 80% cap to the overall was created.

 

I think in all the complaints, one thing that's not being emphasized enough is that the fight engine and the way skills work together with it is already REALLY DAMN GOOD overall. You made a GREAT fight engine. It has problems, like anything has problems, but it really is awesome overall. Since skills interact very well with it, I see no reason to add skills. Just change the way people are able to build fighters by making the 80% cap as-is.

[MMATycoon]

Please don't worry about what it would / would not affect time spent on other stuff. I really meant looking at things independently

 

Thanks for the compliment on the fight engine in general.

[Showdown]

Please don't worry about what it would / would not affect time spent on other stuff. I really meant looking at things independently

 

Looking at it independently, yes there is some merit to adding the 2 new skills and then capping from that, because it would help diversity in fighter builds a little bit. Plus I think there would be less resistance from the high-level community because you wouldn't be cutting down anyone's skills. If it's Escapes you are adding, I think that's a good one too, because I do think ground fighters will still want it, but they won't want it quite as bad as a standup fighter would, especially if Escapes was mainly used as a way to stand up from being on the ground. Most ground fighters would probably rather sweep from bottom and land on top in most cases if they wanted to escape, which I'm assuming would still use the old skills? If you are trying to make a ground skill to help ground fighters, it needs to be a skill that standup fighters want more than ground fighters do. But if you are just looking to split some skills up, then it would be cool if all fighters wanted it.

[Warwynd]

Looking at it independently, yes there is some merit to adding the 2 new skills and then capping from that, because it would help diversity in fighter builds a little bit. Plus I think there would be less resistance from the high-level community because you wouldn't be cutting down anyone's skills. If it's Escapes you are adding, I think that's a good one too, because I do think ground fighters will still want it, but they won't want it quite as bad as a standup fighter would, especially if Escapes was mainly used as a way to stand up from being on the ground. Most ground fighters would probably rather sweep from bottom and land on top in most cases if they wanted to escape, which I'm assuming would still use the old skills? If you are trying to make a ground skill to help ground fighters, it needs to be a skill that standup fighters want more than ground fighters do. But if you are just looking to split some skills up, then it would be cool if all fighters wanted it.

 

This and Showdown's previous post are pretty much what I think will be the best option. I too think that the straight cut to 80% would be the best option overall as was originally put forward. My only real objection to that. And objection was really a strong word to use just there, but it was that these guys were going to get cut overnight.

 

Seeing as how most of them seem to prefer that to adding new skills then I suppose that would be the best solution. However, I do think that adding the two new skills and taking a look at Referee Standups to see if there is a possible issue there would be good for the game also. It would probably make the ground game much more viable at the mid to high levels of the game.

[Rambo]

I think he should do what he wants, instead of going by what 10 people on the forums say. Do what you think is best, Mike!

 

The skill cap idea seems fine to me. Even though I supported tickers, they make me more anxious than if we didn't have to worry about them at all. So when he said he was just gonna do a skill cap instead, I was actually a lot more relieved and happy than I thought I would be. Then the uproar came and now we have this clusterfuck of ideas from all over the place. If I had the choice, I would take the straight 80% skill cap, cut everybody down to 80% (sorry Chris and Lance!) and leave the number of skills alone.

 

Don't apologize to me, I'd much prefer that anyway. I would like to see intelligence impact that 80%. If we have a borderline genius who has a 140+ IQ I think it'd be fair to say that he should be able to reach up to 85%... and if a guy is dumber than a box of rocks, I think 75% ? Or you could just play the fair to everybody card regardless of hiddens and make it a straight up 80% but I think intelligence affecting that cap, even if it's only something as minor as 1% or 2% would be much more realistic.

 

So to hell with adding stats, that seems equally complicated if not more complicated then increasing the 150 cap... just decrease everybody's stats, and get it over with.

 

Of course, I'd like to see a 85% cap before 80%, most of my guys are around the 80% or just under that 80% marker and I'd like to see them still capable of improving a lil bit. I only have 4 or 5 fighters on my roster above 80%.

 

Either way, doesn't really matter. Adding stats seems extreme. If you're gonna add ground stats it prolly should just be 1 simplified stat, offensive grappling, it could be the same thing as defensive grappling, but cover transitions, top control, etc.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

[Guest]

Just taking the adding of two skills as a separate point. Do people not think that having these two extra skills in the form of transitions and escapes makes the game better in itself? In itself I do mean when combined with a skill cap, so that people have to pick and choose between a wider variety of skills.

 

I think it would...at the very least it would stop defensive grappling from being this demigod of a skill that effects nearly everything on the ground. Standup guys might not need transition skills (although they'll probably want some) as much as escapes...and ground guys wouldn't really need escapes as much as they would transitions, so it sounds pretty balanced all in all, and maybe can bridge the gap a little bit.

 

On a completely seperate topic regarding ref standups...I get it that some people are well schooled in how to counter the offensive ground guy and get a standup. I just don't think it's very fair in a sense. For example, there's one tactic in particular, being aggressive from the bottom with 100% control...now this guy is so aggressive from the bottom that he's performing all the moves, but failing at them because he sucks on the ground compared to his opponent. So after three unsuccesful moves to control the bottom guy gets his standup. I mean that just strikes me as more of a glitch than some slider wizardry. Maybe their should be more succesful counter ground and pound or something to negate it.

[jacky67]

& won't end with jacky & ed alternating blogs about how miserable the game is every month.

 

 

Well when tickers was implemented a whole alliance (jmfgay) left the game something i predicted cause the game is boring and retarded with tickers.

Remove tickers and i'm sure ed &me will stop these blogs.

[jacky67]

Just taking the adding of two skills as a separate point. Do people not think that having these two extra skills in the form of transitions and escapes makes the game better in itself? In itself I do mean when combined with a skill cap, so that people have to pick and choose between a wider variety of skills.

 

adding two skills will create more problem than solve some in my opinion, ground fighters will need more skills. Training will be slower.