Tag Team wrestling

[OrochiGeese]

Ok!

So I've been thinking a bunch about tag team wrestling recently and FPR, especially with OG-Joshi and LAWL. (UBL isn't really included in this for reasons that will be clear later).

We do a lot of tag matches on Voltages (and Amplitude) and not all those tag matches are really meant as tag title contention matches, or related to the tag titles in any way. And I'm thinking about starting to differentiate tag title "Division" matches from "storyline" tag matches.

Like if I was to do a Holly/Juli Krieger vs. Visper Karr/Nicole Dramesi match (which I won't for storyline reasons and I want Holly to LIVE ;D ) it would have absolutely no tag title repercussions. It's clear the match would be based around two feuds. However, I've started to feel that it actually detracts from the tag titles (and champs) to have other teams winning matches under the same rules but not vying for the tag titles. It's like - "yeah, we can pretty much beat any team...but we don't want the titles."

It's like when you see WWE put two top singles wrestlers against the tag champs. You want to believe the tag champs have the advantage due to teamworksmanship but it doesn't always go that way. However, if there is a different set of rules for competing in the tag title division, that gives the champs the advantage.

But I'm not so much saying dedicated tag teams need an advantage over non-dedicated ones cause its rare i have matches like that. It's more along the lines of giving a distinction between tag title division matches and storyline-tag matches (which are often helpful for advancing singles or faction feuds).

So I've been thinking about giving tag title division matches different rules and ref settings. I'm still not sure exactly which ref settings I want though as I see equal arguments for two different ideas and so I would like some input. I plan to implement this after the next PPV (as I don't want to do it in the middle of the J*NiGHT vs. Dod buildup) so there's no rush here, but I'd like to get ideas flowing, specifically on which rule set would be better for tag title division and which better for storyline tag.

The key here is the referee "lenience time towards interference". I've been watching some EFW matches that have refs with very low lenience. Basically if a wrestler pins someone, their partner has little time to make a tag. Now, I feel that's a bit too short for us but there are benefits to it and it got me thinking. (they are re-thinking low lenience there too, and that discussion has led me to bring it up here!). Medium short gives a wrestler enough time to make it halfway across the ring and I think that could be good - as that preserves some sense of tag team psychology for keeping a wrestler over to your side of the ring.

The question is - are we better off having the tag title division having longer lenience times or shorter? Do we want these tag matches to be more orderly and have tag team moves/spots happen more or less often? The longer the interference times, the less that ring positioning seems to matter. (And imagine using R1 for a POSITIVE purpose in matches rather then a "GASP DONT YOU DARE PIN AFTER THAT!") Are storyline matches better off for having guys brawling in the ring for longer, similar to a tornado match?

I can kinda see arguments on both sides here. I like the idea of ring positioning being a tag division SKILL but, on the other hand, i like tag teams to be more adept at double team moves. That said, I would also like to start creating more tag teams (or modifying existing ones) to have double team special moves that can actually finish a match (via sequence) and those moves shouldn't be spammed so having them more rare is a good thing. I think the idea of distinguishing the tag title division with different ref rules is a good one, I'm just not totally sure on the exact way to do that.

Up to this point I really only mentioned the interference settings for the ref but there are other thing we could also tweak to help the division stand out. Things like outside interference time or even the TIME limit of tag title matches. Maybe Voltage matches would be set at 30 minutes for tag title affairs but PPV's could be unlimited (since its rare we have storyline tag matches on PPV with no tag title implications). I also have been thinking of imposing a 20 minute time limit for Voltage singles matches but that may come later.

So yeah, I guess what I'm asking you to vote on here is between options 1 and 2:

Option 1: Tag Title matches should have less interference lenience then story tag matches.

Option 2: Tag Title matches should have more interference lenience then story tag matches.

But a vote for Option 3 won't be forgotten or ignored.

And feel free to post with any thoughts on other rules as well or specific ideas as to the lenience issue. I don't think I'll use the lowest lenience (as partners are barely allowed in the ring long enough to break up a tag on their OWN side!) So the range here would be between medium-low and high (which is what I think I have now for pretty much every fed and ref). So any specific thoughts are welcome here

As for Amplitude or any Voltage written matches, I think we'll have a bit more leeway here on how to do things. But while this discussion is mainly for video matches, i think it can still find it way into write-ups as long periods of 4 on 4 action in the ring would be cut down depending on the type of match.


As for how this will affect LAWL, I'll probably be doing something similar. I MAY even choose the opposite approach that I do for OG-Joshi just to keep LAWL distinct and also so I can test both approaches. As for UBL, the reason this isn't an issue is cause UBL Battalion matches ALREADY have different rules (survival rules) then regular UBL tag matches so no further distinction is needed. Though I could probably tighten things up and assign different refs to Battalion and non-Battalion tag matches as well.

Ok, sorry this was long...and that it was the longest thing I've written for OG-Joshi this last month when Voltage is still waiting to be released! But I'm hoping some resolution to this matter can help the growing and still kinda new tag division find a higher and more distinguished place here

[OctoberRaven]

Honestly, I dont think a change is neccessary. While I would actually advocate making more lenience, this would lead to the obvious problem of getting a match to actually END with a pin. Really, this is Fire Pro Engine's biggest flaw to me: Submissions late in the match end way to easily for tag matches. OTOH, less lenience means possibly shorter and less exciting matches.

Honestly, I'd say go with what you think would be best for the particular match, but in general just go with the usual formula.

[OrochiGeese]

Right now I think we may actually have the highest lenience for OG-Joshi matches, in addition to UBL and LAWL. But you are right, pins are hard in tag matches cause of interference and subs are much easier. If we lower interference, then that evens out pins/subs a bit but at the potential cost of excitement.

Now one idea I had is to rework the tag edits a bit (at least the ones that will wrestle based on lower lenience). Giving them more of a traditional type feel where "ring zoning" matters more and maybe even double team moves are bigger cause they happen a bit less and not everyone in the fed has BIG ones. Like limiting wrestlers who aren't in dedicated tag teams to the simpler, non-flash tag moves. So that those in dedicated tag teams can actually have the bigger tag moves be legit finishers/specials (and sequenced, as a result). But that's just a preliminary idea and I still want to test some things out.

Really, the biggest thing i wanted to do here is just differentiate the tag division tag matches from the other story matches. I don't know if we NEED to change lenience settings for that, but it was an idea. Maybe its something that I should test out in LAWL before i do it here (since the LAWL tag division is smaller and I could really just test it all out with potato/banana re-editing/simming). But overall, i'm glad to get your feedback as I want to make some changes but i'm not sure which direction specifically to go

[raducan78]

Hm, this is a rather complex question that can't be answered by a single sentence!

I've been working on this matter for a long time and did a lot of changes to the refs settings but I'm really not 100% pleased now. If you set the interference time to be long, the matches seem to last forever cause pins can be broken up regardless where they happen. Also, as OR said, submission-victories become more frequent because they seem to be the only way to end these "neverending" matches. This could be avoided by setting all your submissions to 0 % at ND, but this may not always fit to your edit.

I pesonally don't distinguish between story and title tags. I use the following settings:

I set interference time to low for my lower/midcard matches because I don't want these matches to last more than 12-15 (FPR) minutes. I use medium slow or medium for my title/"important" feud matches, because these matches are supposed to be more "epic" - but this is just my personal taste!

[motosada]

Why overcomplicate an issue? Doing this would just bring on questions like "should rules be changed for title matches vs non-title matches?" or cause us to have a discussion on this topic, but for singles matches later on. Plus, it creates unnecssary confusion; you're trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (or, at least, is unfixable given the engine we're working with here). Sure, sure, it's not entirely awesome to see two seemingly-random singles wrestlers beat an established tag team in a match, but most of the time when that's done, you're taking high card wrestlers against mid-carders, so it makes just as much sense for them to win as it does for them to lose against a pure tag team. It's not exactly an equal fight for either side.

But, yeah. No rule changes. If you want less interference time, just choose a ref with a lower setting. Simple as pie.

[OrochiGeese]

Thanks very much for the feedback guys (Raducan is helpful on his first post!)

It's not really an issue of having non-tag wrestlers beat tag wrestlers, Moto. It's more an issue of having tag division matches stand out from non tag division matches. That said, until and if I start posting shows more frequently, it may be a moot point. I think it might be a bigger deal if i was doing like tons of non tag title matches but since I'm not, well, i doubt anyone is really getting that confused.

Maybe I just won't formalize the rules in storylines but try some test sims with different refs for the different style of matches. I don't like needlessly complicating things or taking away any flexibility from how we do things (especially since FPR video matches can be tricky as it is) but I really do like the idea of having tag title division matches have their own "feel" as opposed to just storyline tag matches. But that doesn't mean we have to codify that difference into rules. We can always just have different refs unofficially/coincidentally assigned to the different style of matches.

I figured I'd float the idea to you guys as its been on my mind and this is the kind of helpful feedback I was hoping for. What I may end up doing is just using LAWL as a tag team test laboratory (fitting for LAWL) to see if I can find a combination of settings and edit work that may get me what I want. If I succeed, I'll discuss the results here and bring up the idea again but I'm fine keeping things the way they are here, or, at the very least, only unofficially assigning refs to the different tag matches as I said above.

[raducan78]

Jan 8, 2009 18:10:50 GMT -5 OrochiGeese said:

Thanks very much for the feedback guys (Raducan is helpful on his first post!)

Thanks a lot, dude. But I'm still a FPR rookie. FPR is the first FireProwrestling I bought and I wish I' d have come across this game earlier. I surely missed a lot!

Anyway, I know I can't contribute that much to your e-fed because I don't know much about e-fedding... well, to be honest, I don't know much about wrestling/puro in general, but I try to improve my knowledge every day.

[OrochiGeese]

Well, I think you have some very good insight (especially for a rookie!) and the input was appreciated

And everyone was an e-fed rookie at one point. We have a pretty rookie-friendly environment in my feds overall so if you were interested in getting involved, you are definitely welcome to. But if you just want to be around for the discussion, that's cool too. Low pressure environment here, enjoy it anyway you want

(Preferably with pants on, but I don't enforce that nor do I want to try ;D )

[Joe Snack Road]

Jan 8, 2009 12:20:39 GMT -5 raducan78 said:

I set interference time to low for my lower/midcard matches because I don't want these matches to last more than 12-15 (FPR) minutes. I use medium slow or medium for my title/"important" feud matches, because these matches are supposed to be more "epic" - but this is just my personal taste!

This, right here, is what I think.

I have different refs I use for tag matches; and these refs are adjusted and tested to help a match last depending on how long it should.

Lets say Team A and Team B aren't top tier tag teams. In fact, they may be opening. Those two teams would benefit from ANY exposure, because they're opening shows - so, if its a shorter match, in my mind, that is ok.

Meanwhile Team A versus Champion Team B, that should last a bit longer. By bit longer, I'd say 17-24 minutes; because when you get past that you get into the engine's weaknesses, and the match drags on - for a while it was questioned whether or not the game actually was glitched in a way that tags just WOULDN'T HAPPEN after the X minute mark.

I know Geese and I talked about it in a few instances, our problem being (from a gameplay standpoint) that the person on the apron would be fresh as hell, but the person in ring would be like, near the point of having a heart attack and dying in the ring.

tl;dr, I voted option C.

[OrochiGeese]

Thanks for the feedback

So it seems you are also more into splitting matches based on their place in the card then based on title contention. In that case, would you say that a Holly/Juli vs. Visper/Nicole match should get the same ref settings as a non title J*NiGHT vs. Dod match? Both those matches could be Voltage main events. And would your answer change if the latter match was a title match or, either way, the fact that both pairings are potential main event tag matches means they should both use the same ref settings? That's pretty much what we have done up to this point and if you guys are for continuing it, that's fine by me

I've been using different refs for a while but actually for movement/pinfall count speed then interference time. I suppose I could make further adjustments like that. Fry and Guybrush are meant for early/mid card matches, McGuirk is meant for comedy matches and brawls (as he just lets ANYTHING happen), then Celes/Kenshin (and Anji in UBL) are for BIG matches. So I think I can keep that hierarchy but work in tag interference time into it as well to help tier matches. And really that can be a great solution. If we use this tiered match system (low vs. high card) for OG-Joshi and then I use my "storyline vs. tag title" division split in LAWL, we'd actually have a nice distinction between tag matches between those two feds

As for the game engine, I actually have noticed that longer tag matches have worked for me recently. I've gotten some hot Battalion matches in the last week (matches that have re-invigorated my Battalion spirit!) and in those matches, guys are actually reliably tagging well into the 30-40 minute mark. I think JD, especially, performs some kind of alchemy on his edits to make them work like that ;D

[raducan78]

I agree with Joe Snack Road. The ref settings should only be determined by the place in the card of the match. I wouldn't use different settings for title and non-title matches.

My experiences with the game engine - concerning the number of tags late in the match - are these:

Sometimes, the wrestlers seem to refuse to tag out after the 25-30minute mark. The reasons of this behaviour have been discussed a dozen of times already. But just recently I had some great tag matches (involving the DOD's) where the wrestlers kept on making tags even after 40 minutes. So I think that you can't really have that much influence on the way the match keeps going. You just have to be lucky !

As I said in my previous post, FPR is my first FireProwrestling. What I would really like to know is: Did this "tag-refusal"-problem occur in the the whole FirePro-series or is this a specific problem of FPR?

@orochigeese
I decided to put my pants on again before posting - thanks for the advice ;D!

[OrochiGeese]

Jan 9, 2009 21:17:17 GMT -5 raducan78 said:

I agree with Joe Snack Road. The ref settings should only be determined by the place in the card of the match. I wouldn't use different settings for title and non-title matches.

Yeah I think that may be the way we will go with OG-Joshi. Some unholy combination of the importance of the match and place of the card of the wrestlers will determine which ref to use.

Jan 9, 2009 21:17:17 GMT -5 raducan78 said:

Sometimes, the wrestlers seem to refuse to tag out after the 25-30minute mark. The reasons of this behaviour have been discussed a dozen of times already. But just recently I had some great tag matches (involving the DOD's) where the wrestlers kept on making tags even after 40 minutes. So I think that you can't really have that much influence on the way the match keeps going. You just have to be lucky !

I've noticed that the Dods and like all of JD's teams make tags late in the match and have INCREDIBLE teamwork. I also really love their taunt synchronization, adds a lot of character to the matches.

Jan 9, 2009 21:17:17 GMT -5 raducan78 said:

As I said in my previous post, FPR is my first FireProwrestling. What I would really like to know is: Did this "tag-refusal"-problem occur in the the whole FirePro-series or is this a specific problem of FPR?

It's been so long since I played FPD but as Joe said, I remember us commenting on how the engine had that problem with late tags being rare (and back then it really was more rare to see them). The thing is I don't remember if FPD had that issue and if we were talking about the fire pro engine in general or just FPR.

Jan 9, 2009 21:17:17 GMT -5 raducan78 said:

@orochigeese
I decided to put my pants on again before posting - thanks for the advice ;D!

That's the advice that keeps giving since Goose is around ;D

[Joe Snack Road]

Jan 9, 2009 22:30:58 GMT -5 OrochiGeese said:

It's been so long since I played FPD but as Joe said, I remember us commenting on how the engine had that problem with late tags being rare (and back then it really was more rare to see them). The thing is I don't remember if FPD had that issue and if we were talking about the fire pro engine in general or just FPR.

I remember that we both went pretty much face first into all things FPR on its initial (Japanese) release, and we had quite a few emails shared where we discussed ideas and thoughts based on the engine itself...

As I recall, Jason Blackhart brought out the facts about the way the damage was calculated in tag matches - that damage accumulated faster to balance out that there are more people involved in the match.

Basically, we wound up theorizing that the way damage accumulates winds up overriding the tag priority logic - meaning, the opponents are busy "GOING FOR THE KILL!" or whatever you have set for Near Death - too busy doing that to actually, y'know. Tag.

[OrochiGeese]

Yes, the damage part is definitely true for tag matches. It's pretty staggering at times how far an edit can fall in damage in a tag match compared to singles. I never really saw the need for that but i do see where spike was coming from. 4 on 4 elimination tags last long enough

And I think the override is essentially correct.. at least in respect to the idea that the same settings that CAN cause a late tag in other FPW games don't do so in FPR. But I have seen a bunch of FPR tag matches recently where they still tag later on. I'll have to check the settings on JD's edits to see what his tag "Cut play" and teamwork settings are as they seem to REALLY do the trick of keeping tags late in the match

[unimportantguy]

This is an interesting discussion to me, not only because of how it might affect OG-Joshi, but because it's making me think about how I run tag matches. I can definitely see the point to both high and low interference levels as they pertain to the different matches. What I do in SWA is I have three refs: A very strict ref, a very lenient ref, and a fairly balanced ref. I trade these out depending on what kind of match I want.

I generally find that the strict ref creates quick, orderly matches, but they can go too quickly and be over before you really feel them. The lenient ref has the greatest chance of creating long epic matches, but can also create a long, disorganized snoozer. The balanced ref tends to create focused, WWE main event-type 15-20 minute matches, with little opportunity for epic matches or fast undercard matches. What I generally do then is use the strict ref early in the card, the lenient ref when I really want the wrestlers to go the distance, and the balanced ref when I want that "Main Event" feel but don't want a super-long match. I don't know if this is any help at all, but that's how I handle both singles and tag matches.