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WWE 2K18 Universe Mode Sim

vivisectvi

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dubq's WWE 2K18 UNIVERSE SIM



CHAMPIONS

WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION: KEVIN OWENS

WOMEN'S CHAMPION: EMBER MOON

WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: #DIY - GARGANO & CIAMPA

INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION: BOBBY ROODE



TV SHOWS:
  • RAW (flagship)
  • Main Event (secondary)

MONTHLY EVENTS/PPV's:
  • JAN: Royal Rumble
  • FEB: Fastlane
  • MAR: WrestleMania
  • APR: Payback
  • MAY: Backlash
  • JUN: Money in the Bank
  • JUL: Battleground
  • AUG: SummerSlam
  • SEP: No Mercy
  • OCT: Extreme Rules
  • NOV: Survivor Series
  • DEC: Clash of Champions

ROSTER
Just a note about card placement. These are just starting positions. Universe mode will move wrestlers up and down the card depending on if they achieve goals and win matches, etc.

I'm also trying to figure out a schedule for a regular "performance review" of the rosters. Either bi-monthly, or quarterly. During these reviews, we'd look at the lowest performing wrestlers/teams and decide whether or not we're going to swap them out for fresh, new blood.

MEN'S DIVISION - MAIN EVENT [6]
Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Seth Rollins, Shinsuke Nakamura, Brock Lesnar.

MEN'S DIVISION - UPPER CARD [8]
AJ Styles, Aleister Black, Braun Strowman, Finn Bálor, Roman Reigns, Rusev, Sami Zayn, Drew McIntyre.

MEN'S DIVISION - MID-CARD [12]
Chris Jericho, The Miz, Akira Tozawa, Big E, Bobby Roode, Darren Young, Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper, Neville, Aiden English, Baron Corbin, Bray Wyatt.

MEN'S DIVISION - LOWER CARD [14]
Enzo Amore, No Way Jose, Noam Dar, Rich Swann, Tye Dillinger, Apollo Crews, Kalisto, Epico Colon, Gran Metalik, Jack Gallagher, Cedric Alexander, Elias, Eric Young, Kassius Ohno.

WOMEN'S DIVISION - UPPER CARD [8]
Asuka, Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss, Bayley, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Ember Moon, Alicia Fox.

WOMEN'S DIVISION - LOWER CARD [12]
Emma, Naomi, Paige, Billie Kay, Natalya, Nia Jax, Carmella, Mickie James, Maryse, Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, Ruby Riot.

TAG TEAM DIVISION [8]
Xavier Woods & Kofi Kingston [The New Day]
Cesaro & Sheamus [The Bar]
Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso [The Usos]
Akam & Rezar [The Authors of Pain]
Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson [The Revival]
Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa [#DIY]
Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
Fandango & Tyler Breeze [Breezango]



CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENTS

Note that for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, due to the number of participants, two byes into the second round were randomly drawn when generating the brackets. Samoa Joe & Dean Ambrose won the draw.

World Heavyweight Championship

Women's Championship

World Tag Team Championships
 

fazzle

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I only hope your universe mode is as completely fucking bonkers as mine. (Yeah, I wound up with the game somehow for my birthday)

Brock dominated title matches for the first 6 months or so until he finally lost the Universal Championship.....to R-truth. Truth would then go on to beat Brock 2 more times to retain it, then Roman Reigns twice and then won a 4 way against Neville, Dean and Seth, before finally being dethroned at Mania by.....Rich Swann.

This was all done without me influencing the booking in any way whatsoever.
 

vivisectvi

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I'm gonna try to be as hands off as possible but I'll probably book the main event scene at the least. ;)
 

HarleyQuinn

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Filled it out for ya :) Excited to see what happens.
 

vivisectvi

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Thanks for participating, everyone! Got a lot of great entries. I've tallied up the rosters, titles, shows, etc. and have update the first post with all of the info. Excited to get going. I believe that the NXT DLC comes out tomorrow so I'm going to hold off another day just to see if we can get McIntyre and Black into the WHC tourney. If it turns out that they don't get released tomorrow, then we will proceed with a revised bracket and just debut those two at a later date.
 

vivisectvi

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Haha, sadly no. :p

I do have an idea for the belts that I'm going to post, outside of the survey, to see what y'all think, though. Just need to create them and take screencaps.
 

vivisectvi

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NXT DLC drops tomorrow so we can get going on this, finally!
 

vivisectvi

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I opted to stream the tournaments instead - posted below. Note the glitches and botches for both the WHC and Tag tournaments. I'll still need to tweak the balance sliders for the Universe Mode itself, but overall I'm happy with the results.. (spoilers below the videos)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Y2KrFo2VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI7CPPqUCyw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnl9PZHKBY

World Tag Team Championship: The Bar (Sheamus & Cesaro) "defeated" #DIY (Gargano & Ciampa) in the finals, via count-out. A rematch was held immediately where #DIY (Gargano & Ciampa) officially won the titles.

Women's Championship: Ember Moon defeated Becky Lynch in the finals.

World Heavyweight Championship: Kevin Owens defeated Dean Ambrose in the finals. Super unsatisfying TLC match, that ended very quickly. Dean will definitely be getting a rematch, and possibly feuding with Owens.
 

vivisectvi

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Don't worry, Dean will get his rematch! ;)

Also, as a result of the WHC tourney, there has been some shift in the Main Event/Upper Card scene.

Moved up to the Main Event: Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe.
Moved down to the Upper Card: Braun Strowman, AJ Styles.
 

vivisectvi

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Also, I think I am going to just shut off commentary. It super repetitive and obnoxious.
 

HarleyQuinn

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Watching the tourneys, some fun stuff. I did notice that some of the matches felt like they ended out of nowhere e.g. the first match for Bayley where the only pinfall was literally the final one, lol. Also that slow counting ref, good lord.
 

vivisectvi

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Yea I definitely need to tweak the balance sliders a bit. It kind of annoys me that it takes about six finishers to end a match. Also the AI has a habit of trying to win by count out a lot, which I find super anti climactic. Possibly just gonna turn count outs off.
 

fazzle

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I like that the AI tries to take advantage of the full 10 count. It beats the hell out of previous WWE games where no matter what was happening, they'd immediately turn and run directly to the ring as soon as the ref hit 5.
 

vivisectvi

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fazzle said:
I like that the AI tries to take advantage of the full 10 count. It beats the hell out of previous WWE games where no matter what was happening, they'd immediately turn and run directly to the ring as soon as the ref hit 5.
I do like that as well, I just wish it wasn't always likely that the opponent isn't also going to make it into the ring to beat the count. I wonder if I should try extending the count to 20, or if the same thing would happen, just at 18 instead of 8..
 

vivisectvi

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Contender rankings added to each title division in the first post.
 

vivisectvi

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Thinking about an old fashioned round robin for the IC title over the coming weeks.. In order to have this not take forever and also dominate the main shows in Universe Mode, I am debating adding a third "tour show" to the calendar to take care of a lot of these matches. Thoughts?

http://i.imgur.com/PneYO88.jpg

Match breakdown would be as follows: Block A on RAW, Block B on Main Event. The two highlighted matches for each round would take place on those shows and then the remaining three matches for each round could take place on the weekly "tour show".

Block A: http://i.imgur.com/wTAi3jG.jpg
Block B: http://i.imgur.com/T5pGaMm.jpg
 

HarleyQuinn

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I'd go the old school way and do a Battle Royal where the 2 finalists go head to head for the belt. Always loved that Razor/Martel match that resulted from it and it leads to a bit more unpredictability.

You could even do a Block A battle royal and Block B battle royal.
 

vivisectvi

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Ahh, I really like that idea! It also cuts down on the time to actually crown a champ, which I'm all for.

Had to cut a few participants since game only allows for 8 max in a battle royal, but here is a possible "bracket"

 

vivisectvi

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First two shows will be posted tomorrow. Still tweaking the balance but things are getting a bit better. :)
 

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Week 1 is now complete!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM7GbwdDOO4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7zjFLXEaM

Some notes:
- WWE2K18 doesn't let you export any music with the PS4's internal capturing firmware, so I've had to use some stock music that Sony includes as a part of the PS4 editing suite. They're not terrible and I think the two that I chose fit well with the shows. The big takeaway from this, however, is don't expect to hear any entrance music for the wrestlers. I could edit them in myself, but it would take a lot more time and there's a chance I'd get flagged for a copyright takedown. This is one of the reasons I've turned entrances off for the most part.

- Our first Intercontinental Battle Royal takes place on this weeks RAW show. I went with "scramble" rules - only pinfalls and submissions count toward an elimination. A bit of a throwback to the old Fire Pro Wrestling S: Six Man Scramble on Saturn. ;)

- Starting next week I am an going to test drive increasing Main Events matches from 4 to 5 and seeing how that works out. I noticed that this week it was basically all women's matches and one tag match, so hopefully adding another match to the card will even things out a bit.

- WWE 2K18's Universe Mode also has an option to limit what titles wrestlers can challenge for and what shows they will appear on. This was a much needed feature that I believe was introduced in 2K17 and basically lets you eliminate the game from having, for example, wrestlers in tag teams suddenly start challenging for singles title.

So to tighten things up, I've made the following "rules":
- main event/upper card men and women singles competitors and the top two tag teams only ever appear on RAW.
- tag team wrestlers are not eligible to compete for any singles titles unless a storyline dictates that they are to do so.
 

vivisectvi

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Week 2! The second battle royal scramble leading to the IC Title match will take place on RAW in Week 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efFvWbZcriI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzMxYqr2qkA
 

vivisectvi

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The road to Payback continues!

Week 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFA9q5aRupk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlriTHE0Og


Week 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwuqfybT-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rkhdKhpiSg
 

vivisectvi

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Would be interested in some feedback on these. Should I change anything? Should I keep doing them? Cancel the series and wait for PS4 Fire Pro? ;)
 

vivisectvi

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So I was watching Gore & Perkins and how they work their Universe sim, and I think I'm going to try modifying this a bit and making it a bit more streamlined and similar to theirs. Granted, they're two guys who are playing the matches against each other, with their own commentary - and as much as I like the idea of doing that with a friend, I don't really have any IRL friends who like wrestling AND video games. It's always one or the other. SO, with that in mind, this is what I'm thinking:

1. Matches are still simmed by the CPU.

2. Commentary is turned off to reduce the repetitive annoyance of Byron exclaiming, "ain't no stopping him now," every three minutes.

3. Only rivalry and title matches will be shown in length. Everything else will be simmed - ie: you only see the result. This will cut down on the viewing time and help with the focus of the show.

4. If time permits, I'm also going to look at creating story specific scenarios (backstage attacks etc) with the in-game video creation tool. Adds a bit more depth outside of the Universe driven rivalry scenes.

5. As the "season" progresses, I'm going to look at bringing in high quality created wrestlers. I have a ton of Japanese stars downloaded now and would like to look at ways to bring them into the Universe.
 

vivisectvi

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Still trying to refine this Universe mode to maximize interest and not just make it a boring AI sim.

In the meantime, I've been simming a few matches from each Raw, Smackdown, 205 & NXT each week.. so far it's getting me good results. My subscriber count went up by 10 as soon as I started doing this.. and so far the most popular stuff is the women's wrestling. There may be something to this data.. it looks like fans on YouTube are invested in the women's revolution. Could be worth making that a focus of my Universe.. I'd definitely need to bolster the roster with created-wrestlers, though..

Here's Ember vs Shayna from NXT this week. Popped over 150 views overnight after I posted it.

https://youtu.be/O_vbsI3P6JE
 
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