Ticker Replacements

[Dee]

i don't see what's wrong with the ticker system in the first place...it's realistic and gives me something else to pay attention to in the game...i guess many people don't like them, though

Personally Im not a huge fan of the work load that comes with tickers. It's a chore to micromanage your fighters training everyday. Besides, the tickers are not doing what they were suppose to do in the first place (they're way too slow).

[MMATycoon]

OK, it seems like the conversation's going pretty sensibly so far, so thanks for that. I'll run through a load of the points.

 

1. A hidden for peak skills, I'm cool with that. I would like it to be separate from the fast learner. As has been mentioned a few times, fast learner is already a beast of a hidden that means a lot of cut fighters so I have no problem with it being diluted somewhat. I think personally that's a good thing. Maybe if you have a skill peak hidden and a fast learner hidden, new people will choose fast learner and project builders could go for the peak hidden. More options. I would prefer a relatively narrow band of about 78-82%. I can imagine it would be very disheartening if you had trained a guy up for ages and he hits 75% and stops (in for example a 75-85% spread hidden). That would absolutely suck. 4% total skills is still a big enough spread and is around 100 points or half a skill level across the board.

 

2. Decreasing the effectiveness of ground fighters. This has been repeated a lot of times but I haven't seen anyone explain why. I don't see it changing things either way and if anything I see it as helping that situation. I'm not sure if some people are unaware or have just forgotten or what, but takedown defense / sub defense etc have been looking at your offensive skills for a while now. It's not an insignificant part of the equation, so I think that's more a perception than a reality. If there are difficulties for grappers in the game, that's a game engine issue more than a skills issue now, since those changes about 5 months ago.

 

3. The "I've worked so hard and now it's all gone! I'm done!" argument. If that's how you feel, please can you explain how that's the case, preferably in numbers / an actual example of one fighter and how he is negatively impacted.

 

4. Related to points 1 and 4, I don't know how well this would go down but I have no problem with anyone being over 82% currently, getting that max skill peak hidden of 82%, to show appreciation that they'd worked hard to get their skills to that level and deserve some credit / benefit from that.

 

5. Choosing what skills to drop in. We can do that. I don't think it'd be anything like as necessary under the new system as the current system though - you should be able to drop off whatever skills you want to now, as you don't have to constantly spar everything to avoid any losses. I would prefer to just tae the same % off everything as that would be infinitely easier but I get why people wouldn't want that, so we could work something out.

 

6. We already have a hidden for age drop offs and have had it about a year

 

7. The concept of cutting / squeezing skills. I'm sure that if I added two levels of skill above elite, people wouldn't really have a problem with that. It's a psychological thing to lose skills and I understand that but it's only psychological and is EXACTLY the same concept, barring two facts;

- Adding more skills is way harder to program, would much longer, would mean re-learning skill levels / what's good etc. It would also mean the possibility of errors in training / fight programming and possibly the speed of training would need re-doing.

- I've forgotten the second point whilst I was writing the first one, so that one will have to do

 

8. Aptitudes. I'm struggling to think of a way to work in aptitudes properly, that wouldn't take loads of explaining and in which they aren't a bit of a pointless add on to something that works fine without them. I want to keep the new system simple. Maybe we scrap them, I dunno. We could just leave them as they are whereby you train them a bit faster than other skills but then people would just put their aptitude on the stuff they had the lowest skills in, on creation. With a more basic skill decline system like we'll have in place, I don't really see how to have them affect skill decreases. I don't personally have a problem getting rid of them - the less complicated fighter creation is, the better... I never really liked throwing them in there on creation when a new manager had to stare at even more numbers.

 

 

 

A general point regarding why this is necessary - it has nothing to do with people complaining, rather just the loss of members since the tickers came in (about a net 2000 people loss). I still have all those people's email addresses (about 60,000 people) so can contact them and tell them tickers are gone. I would think a fair few might come back. I have a feedback survey that is sent out when people quit and a lot of responses were that they didn't like the time that tickers took. When you have people like CardiffWanderer that leave, who put so much time into the game and the forums etc, that's not right. For every one that I know individually, there will no doubt be 10s or 100s more that I have never spoken to. Besides, the system, after getting diluted, just didn't work properly. I anticipated a few of the problems but there are others that I didn't anticipate too... the sparring constantly flattening out all skills and bumping all physicals so high was one that I wasn't expecting to the extent that it happened.

 

Regarding the poll itself - I dunno if it's possible to let people not vote on the second one till later so don't worry about it - just change your vote as and when you can be bothered

[Qrash]

Injury Hidden should affect the degradation age.....

I like that way better than my idea of learning speed. Give the injury hidden some love finally!

[Guest]

speed up training also please!

[Qrash]

my comments in red:

 

OK, it seems like the conversation's going pretty sensibly so far, so thanks for that. I'll run through a load of the points.

 

1. A hidden for peak skills, I'm cool with that. I would like it to be separate from the fast learner. I would prefer a relatively narrow band of about 78-82%.

No problem with either suggestion.

 

3. The "I've worked so hard and now it's all gone! I'm done!" argument. If that's how you feel, please can you explain how that's the case, preferably in numbers / an actual example of one fighter and how he is negatively impacted.

Let's say I have a fighter with 85% total skills. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to get down to 80% you would have to cut every single skill down 5%. So my 140-145-135-140-130-140 physicals would be cut to 133-137-128-133-123-133 overnight. For the record I'm ok with that, but a TON of people aren't.

 

5. Choosing what skills to drop in. We can do that. I don't think it'd be anything like as necessary under the new system as the current system though - you should be able to drop off whatever skills you want to now, as you don't have to constantly spar everything to avoid any losses. I would prefer to just tae the same % off everything as that would be infinitely easier but I get why people wouldn't want that, so we could work something out.

Honestly, I think you would have to come up with an interface to let people choose. It'll soothe the burn a bit. I would anticipate though, that everyone will be dropping their low skills (superb and lower) down to Useless instead of dropping Elites down to Remarkable. Is there any downside in that?

 

8. Aptitudes. I'm struggling to think of a way to work in aptitudes properly, that wouldn't take loads of explaining and in which they aren't a bit of a pointless add on to something that works fine without them. I want to keep the new system simple. Maybe we scrap them, I dunno. We could just leave them as they are whereby you train them a bit faster than other skills but then people would just put their aptitude on the stuff they had the lowest skills in, on creation. With a more basic skill decline system like we'll have in place, I don't really see how to have them affect skill decreases. I don't personally have a problem getting rid of them - the less complicated fighter creation is, the better... I never really liked throwing them in there on creation when a new manager had to stare at even more numbers.

You need to make aptitudes mean something or get rid of them. Also, the current system of applying aptitudes is TERRIBLE. And extremely confusing. I know it alienates a lot of newbs. I talk to a lot newbs as a result of my "scholarship fund" and nobody understands aptitudes. I can't stress enough how much that system needs to change. I can explain it to you in length in private if you want.

[Guest]

my comments in red:

 

i dont understand attiputdes

[ArtieBanks]

 

3. The "I've worked so hard and now it's all gone! I'm done!" argument. If that's how you feel, please can you explain how that's the case, preferably in numbers / an actual example of one fighter and how he is negatively impacted.

 

 

right i'll go for one of my fighters the 26 year old Robert Van Winkle. Physicals 91.5%, Primaries 84.5%, Secondaries 82.1%. He is a ground fighter with the primes, Remark Exp, Elite, Sens.

Remark Exp allows him really just enough time to hang striking with a striker to get the fight to the ground. If you nerf the skills. Lets say to an all round 80% mark. thats 6% of my skills gone. Doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things but if i take that away from say my striking. I'd get kicked to death and its game over. I take it away from my ground game? I'd never get that fight to the ground. Take it away from physicals? Well we all know that physicals are the most powerful things when it comes to training fighters its just they don't matter as much when everyone is at elite.

 

May aswell make it KT Tycoon instead of MMA Tycoon. The stand up is already grossly overpowered compared to the ground game. For example. If fighter A is a ground fighter with no kicks but high subs etc. Fighter B is a stand up fighter with high punches and kicks but no subs or takedowns just takedown defence and dg.

 

Fighter A will kick that man to death. Since you need kicks to defend kicks. Even in the odd chance the fight does go to the ground you're guy has no energy left from the constant beatdown of kicks. If you have been lucky enough to land that TD early chances are you won't land a sub. If it was powered the same way kicks were then the second that fight hits the ground the other guy should be tapping within a few sub attempts but that rarely happens.

 

Whats that got to do with capping skills? Well ground guys need a bit of everything to be effective. If you take into consideration they need to at least get there punches,kicks,striking defence and clinch upto exp. As well as getting takedown defence because of the stupid takedowns into mount. Then you have to work on ground and pound takedowns subs and dg. It ends up well over the 80% to make an elite ground guy. Capping the skills will make them pretty much useless.

 

The other thing is i took the time to micromanage my fighters and worked hard to get the fighters i have just recently gotten. Now its being changed because people can't be bothered to sign in once a day or even once every two days to check the tickers and change the training as needed. With Robert i have to train his skills constantly. His tickers are a nightmare.

 

http://i45.tinypic.com/k53bqd.jpg

 

 

If i don't fight every 3 weeks those go down they are impossible to maintain.

[DeadlyDirk]

OK, it seems like the conversation's going pretty sensibly so far, so thanks for that. I'll run through a load of the points.

 

 

2. Decreasing the effectiveness of ground fighters. This has been repeated a lot of times but I haven't seen anyone explain why. I don't see it changing things either way and if anything I see it as helping that situation. I'm not sure if some people are unaware or have just forgotten or what, but takedown defense / sub defense etc have been looking at your offensive skills for a while now. It's not an insignificant part of the equation, so I think that's more a perception than a reality. If there are difficulties for grappers in the game, that's a game engine issue more than a skills issue now, since those changes about 5 months ago.

 

3. The "I've worked so hard and now it's all gone! I'm done!" argument. If that's how you feel, please can you explain how that's the case, preferably in numbers / an actual example of one fighter and how he is negatively impacted.

 

 

In reply to these.

 

2. I'm aware subs and takedowns play into your abioity to defend takedowns and defend submissions much like kicks help your ability to defend kicks but currently although you say it's not an insignificant part of the equation I feel it needs to be higher. I've not noticed a whole lot of difference in this since before the change and certainly not as high as it seems to effect kicks. E.g If you don't have high kicks you are very vulnerable to being kicked. If you don't have any subs but have high defensive grappling you're still pretty unlikely to be subbed as long as you lean highly towards control which I'd say the majority of people are aware of. So maybe the solution is as simple as adding more weight to subs in the equation for defending subs and more weight to takedowns when defending takedowns.

 

As others have said, what wrestlers are there that have amazing takedown defence but couldn't take down a 4 year old girl and what people have amazing defensive skills on the ground but couldn't submit a white belt. PErhaps there could be some kind of link here where once you hit say Remarkable Takedown Defence it can't go any higher until you get your takedowns to say Competent, the same with Submissions and Defensive Grappling.

 

3. Working hard for fighters.......

 

Well firstly I'm not in the, I've worked so hard so I'm done category, I'm pretty easy going and doubt I'll be rage quitting over anything, but here's my problem. I have maybe half a dozen guys at 80% or above. I have absoloutley no problem with them being cut back, if they do get cuts then it'll only be because they were above the new maximum level and will still be either equal or better than any other fighter on the game in terms of skill points.

 

If the solution we are looking for is to create fighter diversity at the top end like you said in the opening post then I just don't see why we have to cut back everyone else as well. Because it's 'fair'? Who cares about fair, as I said I have half a dozen guys who are above 80% and have no problem with them being cut back but still see no need to cut the rest back. If anything it will mean more fighters closer to the top meaning even more variety and people enjoying the game at the top level.

 

I know some have said well if everyone is being cut back the same you'll be just as competitive. I don't really care about trying to catch up to the other guys, I have people who were created at 22 and are slow learners so I know they'll never 'catch up', I'd given up on that a long time ago but I was still happy for them to fight in top orgs and do as well as they can, it didn't bother me how good the opponents were because I knew I still always hard my punchers chance with the few skills I had got to a highish level. Now with the proposed changes they are still gonna be just as challenging with the potential to be Elite in standup but still say Wonderful in the ground skills yet my own skills will have to take a hit as well and due to him being a bit slow it'll take forever to get them back.

 

 

 

It's already taken me say 75 MT sessions and 119 kick sessions to get him to a pretty poor level of Remarkable- in kicks and now there's going to be scaled back say 5% or whatever. That 5% might not sound like much but it'll probably take him another 30 sessions+ to get back and to be honest he could do with training up a few other areas! He fights in the top orgs and from my point of view with less kills it's going to be harder for him to win fights against people who are still going to be Elite/Sensational in areas as everyone will just choose to lower their elbows/knees etc if given the choice and if you don't give people the choice there will be a whole bunch of crying from a lot of people so I doubt you'll have any other choice.

[DeadlyDirk]

ignored

[MMATycoon]

right i'll go for one of my fighters the 26 year old Robert Van Winkle. Physicals 91.5%, Primaries 84.5%, Secondaries 82.1%. He is a ground fighter with the primes, Remark Exp, Elite, Sens.

Remark Exp allows him really just enough time to hang striking with a striker to get the fight to the ground. If you nerf the skills. Lets say to an all round 80% mark. thats 6% of my skills gone. Doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things but if i take that away from say my striking. I'd get kicked to death and its game over. I take it away from my ground game? I'd never get that fight to the ground. Take it away from physicals? Well we all know that physicals are the most powerful things when it comes to training fighters its just they don't matter as much when everyone is at elite.

 

May aswell make it KT Tycoon instead of MMA Tycoon. The stand up is already grossly overpowered compared to the ground game. For example. If fighter A is a ground fighter with no kicks but high subs etc. Fighter B is a stand up fighter with high punches and kicks but no subs or takedowns just takedown defence and dg.

 

Fighter A will kick that man to death. Since you need kicks to defend kicks. Even in the odd chance the fight does go to the ground you're guy has no energy left from the constant beatdown of kicks. If you have been lucky enough to land that TD early chances are you won't land a sub. If it was powered the same way kicks were then the second that fight hits the ground the other guy should be tapping within a few sub attempts but that rarely happens.

 

Whats that got to do with capping skills? Well ground guys need a bit of everything to be effective. If you take into consideration they need to at least get there punches,kicks,striking defence and clinch upto exp. As well as getting takedown defence because of the stupid takedowns into mount. Then you have to work on ground and pound takedowns subs and dg. It ends up well over the 80% to make an elite ground guy. Capping the skills will make them pretty much useless.

 

The other thing is i took the time to micromanage my fighters and worked hard to get the fighters i have just recently gotten. Now its being changed because people can't be bothered to sign in once a day or even once every two days to check the tickers and change the training as needed. With Robert i have to train his skills constantly. His tickers are a nightmare.

 

http://i45.tinypic.com/k53bqd.jpg

 

 

If i don't fight every 3 weeks those go down they are impossible to maintain.

That seems to completely ignore point 3 in my reply above. Can you address that please, thanks.

 

Whatever you have to cut, someone of equal skill would have to cut off their other skills.

 

IIRC, the % impact on offensive takedowns on takedown defense is actually more than for kicks (as a % of striking defense), so it's a matter of perception. It's the equations for calculating takedowns that might need tweaking but it's not a blow to the concept we're talking about here, that a takedown equation might need changing.

 

I think a good idea for people getting worried about what they would have to cut on their fighters - have a go at it and cut 5% off their total skills, then make up a build of someone that you think is that guy's nemesis, skills wise, and do the same cut on him. It's not going to be any / much easier from either side, I don't think. If it is then we tweak the fight engine to balance it out a bit better.

[Guest]

That seems to completely ignore point 3 in my reply above. Can you address that please, thanks.

right i'll go for one of my fighters the 26 year old Robert Van Winkle. Physicals 91.5%, Primaries 84.5%, Secondaries 82.1%. He is a ground fighter with the primes, Remark Exp, Elite, Sens.

Remark Exp allows him really just enough time to hang striking with a striker to get the fight to the ground. If you nerf the skills. Lets say to an all round 80% mark. thats 6% of my skills gone. Doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things but if i take that away from say my striking. I'd get kicked to death and its game over. I take it away from my ground game? I'd never get that fight to the ground. Take it away from physicals? Well we all know that physicals are the most powerful things when it comes to training fighters its just they don't matter as much when everyone is at elite.

 

I think that answers it.

[MMATycoon]

I think that answers it.

I elaborated on my original post - I don't think the it answers anything at all, as the other fighters you are fighting have to cut the same amount of skills too.

[Qrash]

I elaborated on my original post - I don't think the it answers anything at all, as the other fighters you are fighting have to cut the same amount of skills too.

Devil's advocate... I have a fighter at 83% total skills that has to have all of his skills cut 3%. What about my opponent that is at 79.5% total skills? He is under that 80% threshold. Is he getting cut at all? Or did you just make us equals (number-wise) overnight?

[MMATycoon]

Devil's advocate... I have a fighter at 83% total skills that has to have all of his skills cut 3%. What about my opponent that is at 79.5% total skills? He is under that 80% threshold. Is he getting cut at all? Or did you just make us equals (number-wise) overnight?

There's an example about that in the opening post. I'll edit it to include %s... 2 secs, will post then edit;

 

Example fighters' overall skill levels

135/150 skill (90%)

120/150 skill (80%)

100/150 skill (67%)

90/150 skill (60%)

75/150 skill (50%)

 

I would like to bring down the top guy to 80% and reduce the other fighters' skills by less and less as you go down the total skills. We could pick a point below which no decrease would occur, e.g. 50% / 75 points, then work down as follows (numbers are rounded up / down a bit).

 

135 skill (90%) would be cut to 120 (80%) (15 point drop).

120 (80%) cut to 110 (73.33%) (10 point drop).

100 (66.66%) cut to 95 (63.33%) (5 point drop).

90 (60%) cut to 87.5 (58.33%) (2.5 point drop).

75 (50%) and below - no change.

[Guest]

I elaborated on my original post - I don't think the it answers anything at all, as the other fighters you are fighting have to cut the same amount of skills too.

 

Remark Exp allows him really just enough time to hang striking with a striker to get the fight to the ground. If you nerf the skills. Lets say to an all round 80% mark. thats 6% of my skills gone. Doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things but if i take that away from say my striking. I'd get kicked to death and its game over.

 

In my opinion this is a game engine issue though.

[JLP]

Devil's advocate... I have a fighter at 83% total skills that has to have all of his skills cut 3%. What about my opponent that is at 79.5% total skills? He is under that 80% threshold. Is he getting cut at all? Or did you just make us equals (number-wise) overnight?

 

The way I understand it, everyone is getting cut a percentage from fighters above 80% down to fighters at some minimum level to be decided upon i.e. 60%. Of course the fighters around 60% will have barely any cuts relative to the fighter at 85%.

[JLP]

Will the injury hidden effect the initial cuts proposed? I have a few of my top guys who have bad injury hiddens, will they receive extra nerfing?

[Qrash]

The way I understand it, everyone is getting cut a percentage from fighters above 80% down to fighters at some minimum level to be decided upon i.e. 60%. Of course the fighters around 60% will have barely any cuts relative to the fighter at 85%.

 

Ok so still... my 83% fighter becomes 80 but the 79.5% fighter becomes 78.5%. So a 3.5% advantage just became 1.5% overnight. That's what people don't like. For the record, I'm ok with it. Just playing devil's advocate.

[MMATycoon]

Will the injury hidden effect the initial cuts proposed? I have a few of my top guys who have bad injury hiddens, will they receive extra nerfing?

Hadn't thought of it so I would say no.

[Qrash]

There's an example about that in the opening post. I'll edit it to include %s... 2 secs, will post then edit;

 

Example fighters' overall skill levels

135/150 skill (90%)

120/150 skill (80%)

100/150 skill (67%)

90/150 skill (60%)

75/150 skill (50%)

 

I would like to bring down the top guy to 80% and reduce the other fighters' skills by less and less as you go down the total skills. We could pick a point below which no decrease would occur, e.g. 50% / 75 points, then work down as follows (numbers are rounded up / down a bit).

 

135 skill (90%) would be cut to 120 (80%) (15 point drop).

120 (80%) cut to 110 (73.33%) (10 point drop).

100 (66.66%) cut to 95 (63.33%) (5 point drop).

90 (60%) cut to 87.5 (58.33%) (2.5 point drop).

75 (50%) and below - no change.

Based on my time in chat over the past 24 hours I think this very explanation is what's confusing people the most. You need to be more specific. Take a specific fighter (or fighters), post his skills and then what they would become afterwards.

[JLP]

Ok so still... my 83% fighter becomes 80 but the 79.5% fighter becomes 78.5%. So a 3.5% advantage just became 1.5% overnight. That's what people don't like. For the record, I'm ok with it. Just playing devil's advocate.

 

No, your 83% fighter will likely end up around 76-77%, the 79.5% fighter will be around 73-74%. Just an example, no real number crunching involved. You will maintain the almost same percentage points of skill point edge. It will come down a slight bit just due to the numbers shrinking.

[ArtieBanks]

Its both issues but i see what mike is saying that all fighters will be cut down. My past 3-5 months of training some guys to get there skills to the next level basically done in.

 

If this was done at the start of the game i see the sense in it. The games now 3-4 years old now. People have worked hard to get to the stage that their fighters are awesome now get punished. People that haven't worked too hard also get punished yes but not to the extent of the people that have worked hard.

 

I can get on board with it being age wise that skills/physicals go down the same way real fighters do. When a 20-21 year old gets his skills killed then thats a problem. Anyone who has learned how to train projects trains certain things at certain times and usually concentrates on getting one thing high at a time. Even then it would make anyone that has been created messed up because you can put a fighters skill level to wonderful straight away when you create them. May aswell cut any project i have and recreate them and get there skills instantly back to wonderful when it gets put in place.

[Dee]

Ok so still... my 83% fighter becomes 80 but the 79.5% fighter becomes 78.5%. So a 3.5% advantage just became 1.5% overnight. That's what people don't like. For the record, I'm ok with it. Just playing devil's advocate.

Hmm IMO it's a bit weird to make such a fuss about this becouse well it's gonna effect fighters across the board anyway. Sure the gap gets a bit smaller but it's not like the top dogs or w/e will be dethroned of their advantages.

[MMATycoon]

Ok so still... my 83% fighter becomes 80 but the 79.5% fighter becomes 78.5%. So a 3.5% advantage just became 1.5% overnight. That's what people don't like. For the record, I'm ok with it. Just playing devil's advocate.

 

Just to clear things up, an 83% would become a 75.4%. 79.5% would become 73%. So 3.5% difference would become 2.4%

 

Another basic example, you'd have a 135 boxer vs a 120 boxer becoming a 120 boxer vs a 110 boxer.

As a % of each other, in the first fight it's a 12.5% advantage. In the second one it's a 9.1% advantage.

 

 

If this is really something that people are opposed to, we can just add the two skill levels above elite. There are workarounds that make it possible to do without an enormous amount of work.

[DeadlyDirk]

How does coming up with the overall percentahe work Mike considering there are more secondaries than physicals and then more physicals than primaries.

 

Is it simply all of them added together (21 skills combining physicals, primaries and secondaries I believe.) divided by 21 to get your overall percentage?

 

Or is it more complex so that since there are less primaries and physicals they will carry more weight to your overall percentage.

 

E.g What sort of overall percentage would a guy like this come out to..

 

Primaries - 82%

Physicals - 93%

Secondaries - 55%