My Gears Are Slightly Ground: Some Gripes
Jun 25, 2018 16:13:13 GMT -5
Pierre The Enormous likes this
Post by Skullgore on Jun 25, 2018 16:13:13 GMT -5
So, now that Returns is out, I feel it is appropriate to express a few of my gripes with the game. This isn't exclusive to Returns per say; some of these things actually go back to 90X. Maybe you'll agree with them, maybe you won't; it's more just submitted for consideration.
1.) Career Spans - Obviously it makes sense to have a split between the 80s and the 90s guys. What bothers me is the ones that are restricted to half-decades. It's just even worse now that you have some people that start in a random year. The characters in the game pay homage to specific wrestlers and trends of the times. Why are we treating them as if they are actually the guys whose image they borrow from? Just because Roddy Piper turned face in the second half of the 80s shouldn't have to mean that O'Hooligan must do the same. It stifles creativity to be forced to make a change to our individual promotion's history. There's at least a built-in reason to justify the switch from the 80s guys to the 90s one: Mr. Fantasy is running everything and you have to conform to his newer vision. Everyone who uses heel Valedictorian in the early 80s has to make the same storyline consideration to turn him into a face as 1984 winds down. Where's the fun in feeling like my promotion is the same as all others? Why tout that everyone builds a unique history in their game when we're handcuffed by this? It's supposed to be all about building a fantasy after all. It just seems completely antithetical to what the game is supposed to be about to have what happened in reality dictate so much of what happens in the fantasy universe.
I know a lot of people would really like to have the option to change alignments in game. I don't know if that is feasible when we now have individuals who have at least 3 different cards to represent some version of them. People aren't going to want cards they spent time and effort (and sometimes money) to add to their collection to just go away. Maybe everyone needs to have a Hammerhead/Freedom Fighter deal, where you have a heel card and a face card that aren't bound to changes mid-decade. But then what do you do about tweener cards that already have alts? All I know the forced time changes somewhat killed 90X for me. I wouldn't mind if you still had individuals who debut mid-decade as Chicano does, for example. When it's one individual who is forced to change regardless of what is going on in my own personal promotion's storyline is when it becomes a problem. It also kind of cheapens the novelty of the switch when it goes from 80s to 90s.
2.) New Players Get Screwed - For those people who aren't "Returning" from a previous iteration, starting from scratch is way too difficult right now. The first show of every month goes from 4 to 5 matches now without any consideration for the size of your starting roster. Almost every other card has a "Midcarders Only" match - which you get a whopping total of 4 to begin with. Of those four, two begin as champions and aren't always available depending on how the card is arranged. If you're lucky, maybe you get a midcarder who can wrestle in the 80s in your initial store selection. Good luck with that, though.
Local talent was supposed to take away the issue of running out of wrestlers to hold a show. The trade off is you get a dud. That dud really kills your earning potential. I'm doing the fresh start. It's made even worse by me screwing things up, redeeming my old collection, and lost it when I had to do a reinstall. So, I've had shows where because of those duds I get zero money for a show. It's bad enough to only get 50-75% of what you used to make in 90X (which in itself was close to 50% less of what you made in the original 8MW). It starts to enter freemium territory. And listen, I have no problem with the developers wanting to make money for all the time and energy they put into making the game. It's a business. Moreover, I've never felt bad about dropping $10 here and there to support the cause in general. It gives me a boost and it's the least I can do to support the game. Right now starting from scratch is real hard to make any progress with, though. You have to wait for the luck of the store AND for the days to pass to get your login bonuses. My save is 4 days old and I'm still in the middle of March waiting for an 80s-eligible midcarder just so I can have a match I haven't already done in the past month and not use it as a win/loss padding squash match against the local talent. Oh, and I also need somebody who I can at least entertain the thought of challenging for the World Title. Double champions can't happen anymore, so even though I rarely did that in previous versions, I'm even more limited in what the game will let me book.
So, while having the new update is great, especially for those of us who have been playing since the beginning, I worry about trying to grow the game's fanbase. I already have had one friend who I introduced to the game tell me he probably isn't going to play anymore because it's hard to do big chunks of the game on his own time, which is necessary given his profession and other life responsibilities. Again, I don't know what the solution to this is - if it's even seen as a problem from the developers point of view. Again, I'm not going to fault them for trying to make money off what they created. When I need the tokens to buy talent to bolster my roster, I'll gladly throw down $5-$10 to get them. That might turn potential new regular plays off with such a rough beginning, though. For me, I'm left crossing my fingers every 12 hours that I'll get a store refresh that isn't full of push cards and 90s guys. Then, maybe I can actually get through a few months and feel like I'm progressing.
1.) Career Spans - Obviously it makes sense to have a split between the 80s and the 90s guys. What bothers me is the ones that are restricted to half-decades. It's just even worse now that you have some people that start in a random year. The characters in the game pay homage to specific wrestlers and trends of the times. Why are we treating them as if they are actually the guys whose image they borrow from? Just because Roddy Piper turned face in the second half of the 80s shouldn't have to mean that O'Hooligan must do the same. It stifles creativity to be forced to make a change to our individual promotion's history. There's at least a built-in reason to justify the switch from the 80s guys to the 90s one: Mr. Fantasy is running everything and you have to conform to his newer vision. Everyone who uses heel Valedictorian in the early 80s has to make the same storyline consideration to turn him into a face as 1984 winds down. Where's the fun in feeling like my promotion is the same as all others? Why tout that everyone builds a unique history in their game when we're handcuffed by this? It's supposed to be all about building a fantasy after all. It just seems completely antithetical to what the game is supposed to be about to have what happened in reality dictate so much of what happens in the fantasy universe.
I know a lot of people would really like to have the option to change alignments in game. I don't know if that is feasible when we now have individuals who have at least 3 different cards to represent some version of them. People aren't going to want cards they spent time and effort (and sometimes money) to add to their collection to just go away. Maybe everyone needs to have a Hammerhead/Freedom Fighter deal, where you have a heel card and a face card that aren't bound to changes mid-decade. But then what do you do about tweener cards that already have alts? All I know the forced time changes somewhat killed 90X for me. I wouldn't mind if you still had individuals who debut mid-decade as Chicano does, for example. When it's one individual who is forced to change regardless of what is going on in my own personal promotion's storyline is when it becomes a problem. It also kind of cheapens the novelty of the switch when it goes from 80s to 90s.
2.) New Players Get Screwed - For those people who aren't "Returning" from a previous iteration, starting from scratch is way too difficult right now. The first show of every month goes from 4 to 5 matches now without any consideration for the size of your starting roster. Almost every other card has a "Midcarders Only" match - which you get a whopping total of 4 to begin with. Of those four, two begin as champions and aren't always available depending on how the card is arranged. If you're lucky, maybe you get a midcarder who can wrestle in the 80s in your initial store selection. Good luck with that, though.
Local talent was supposed to take away the issue of running out of wrestlers to hold a show. The trade off is you get a dud. That dud really kills your earning potential. I'm doing the fresh start. It's made even worse by me screwing things up, redeeming my old collection, and lost it when I had to do a reinstall. So, I've had shows where because of those duds I get zero money for a show. It's bad enough to only get 50-75% of what you used to make in 90X (which in itself was close to 50% less of what you made in the original 8MW). It starts to enter freemium territory. And listen, I have no problem with the developers wanting to make money for all the time and energy they put into making the game. It's a business. Moreover, I've never felt bad about dropping $10 here and there to support the cause in general. It gives me a boost and it's the least I can do to support the game. Right now starting from scratch is real hard to make any progress with, though. You have to wait for the luck of the store AND for the days to pass to get your login bonuses. My save is 4 days old and I'm still in the middle of March waiting for an 80s-eligible midcarder just so I can have a match I haven't already done in the past month and not use it as a win/loss padding squash match against the local talent. Oh, and I also need somebody who I can at least entertain the thought of challenging for the World Title. Double champions can't happen anymore, so even though I rarely did that in previous versions, I'm even more limited in what the game will let me book.
So, while having the new update is great, especially for those of us who have been playing since the beginning, I worry about trying to grow the game's fanbase. I already have had one friend who I introduced to the game tell me he probably isn't going to play anymore because it's hard to do big chunks of the game on his own time, which is necessary given his profession and other life responsibilities. Again, I don't know what the solution to this is - if it's even seen as a problem from the developers point of view. Again, I'm not going to fault them for trying to make money off what they created. When I need the tokens to buy talent to bolster my roster, I'll gladly throw down $5-$10 to get them. That might turn potential new regular plays off with such a rough beginning, though. For me, I'm left crossing my fingers every 12 hours that I'll get a store refresh that isn't full of push cards and 90s guys. Then, maybe I can actually get through a few months and feel like I'm progressing.
3.) Triple Threats in the 80s? - It's a minor gripe, but it feels so anachronistic.
So, that's my piece on things. Don't get me wrong, this is still a fantastic game that I love to play and I fully intend on sticking around to support it. As I said, it's just some things to think about.
