for all those who create universes

[thebadguy]

I dont know about the rest of you, but I have yet to have any fun with this game. I want to have a Universe that combines both active and retired fighters, ALL in their prime. TBCB has made this task next to impossible if you want to have it as realistic as the game can be. Andreas? OOTP? How hard would it be to put in an aging process or ANYTHING that would make having a Universe with ALL the fighters possible? It was possible in TF2001, why not TBCB?

If anyone has put together a Universe that consists of active and retired fighters fighting one another, would you PLEASE let me know how you did it. The way it is now - unless I am overlooking something - all kinds of ratings would have to be changed, every active fighter would have to be put in their prime (or at least what we view their prime as) and placed in the retired list ONE BY ONE!!! The task of doing this and doing it right seems so overwhelming that its hard to even get the motivation to get started. All work, no play.

[PittPanther]

This time, badguy, I feel your pain.

[thebadguy]

should the lack of responses tell me that most of you have the same problem? or should it tell me that you think I am full of sH!+ and that I should just loosen up? the lack of responses by OOTP staff members says something else entirely, but I dont feel like stepping on any toes today. I noticed Andreas had a reply in almost all of the first 8 or 10 threads, but skipped right over mine. WTF? PLEASE!!!!!!!!! Andreas, Jim, Tom.... add ANYTHING you can think of to make TBCB more user friendly to those of us that like to create and build more complex universes. is there any answer to this? I look at the game and see the potential and I cant wait to dive in, but I just simply cant do what I want to do with the game. The way the active and retired fighters are setup makes it almost impossible. Jim? Tom? Andreas?

[Rasmuth]

I change my active fighters to retired...one by one. As far as rating go...I compare them to the ratings from TF2001...and use whichever set is better.

[jabbo]

I would like to be able to switch fighters' ratings by toggling between the "prime," "pre-prime" etc. settings without having to go in and manually changing the ratings. It would make running a universe much easier. Maybe when the role-playing game comes out.

Bob

[maxx]

Very early on when the game first came out I made a similar request. The response was that this feature would show up in the role playing game, but it would not be part of this game.

If I remember correctly, they said the reason the career stage feature is included at this time for retired fighters is to allow for users to more accurately simulate historical fights where one or both participants were not at prime. The career stage feature is not intended to act as an ageing mechanism for role playing (even though that's how I -- and I'm sure others -- use it).

So, since I like to run a universe instead of sticking strictly with simulations, I chose not to wait until the role playing version comes out & have just made due. My solution has been to consolidate to the 8 original weight divisions. At any one time I have 32 fighters active in that division. Even though it's not intended for this purpose, I use the career stages feature to age all fighters.

When a fighter retires (which I do by hand via a formula), I randomly introduce a new fighter. If that fighter happens to be active, I retire and adjust to prime based on a variation of that ageing formula I calculated long ago. So, even though I have to make adjustments by hand, the volume I'm dealing with is so low that it hasn't been a huge issue.

That said, I would more than welcome a very basic method of adjusting active fighters to prime. It wouldn't have to be anything near as sophisticated as they're planning for the role play version.

[punchdrunk]

I have had a lot of fun with the game, but I only fight extensively with the active fighters. I concentrate on the HW division, and have added about 50 or so fictional fighters. I just keep the rankings on paper using the Role Playing system from the Trunzos, and some random die roles to simulate fighter improvement over time.

I know this doesn't have much to do with part of your post since I don't mix the active and retired fighters, but I have had a lot of fun. However, even though I have had fun, for some reason I just don't seem to be "into" the fights the way I was "into" the fights using the board game. I can still remember some of those old fights just like they were just a couple of months ago - even though it's been more than twenty years since I fought them. Anyone else have that same feeling??? Maybe it's just that there are so many more fighters to fight with... I just don't seem to be as connected.

[crusadecat]

Badguy, I have some active fighters in my invite boxing universe. I just took a look at each individually put them as retired and rerated them accordingly. Such was the case when Lennox Retired recently I asked the board for suggestions and implemented a new re rated Lewis.

[thebadguy]

i see what you're saying and I agree it works to a point, but it still isn't good enough. with fighters that I know more about (Lennox Lewis, Joe Mesi, Guinn, Byrd, Ruiz etc), I can change their ratings with a fair amount of simplicity. However, there are ALOT of Active fighters on the game (not just the HW's) that I know absolutely nothing about, therefore, changing the ratings for hundreds or thousands of "no-name" fighters is a mighty big task. It wouldn't be hard at all if a generic aging formula were put into the game and I cant imagine that it would be all that difficult to implement. I realize that the role playing version of the game might help with this a little, but I dont think it will address exactly what we are talking about. still no word from the developers on this thread... which I find fairly disappointing.

[jrmorgan56]

I understand what you are saying and do feel for you. But don't lose sight that this version of the game is meant mainly as a simulation. When the role-playing version comes out later, it will feature aging fighters, retirement, declining ratings, new fighters coming up the ranks, etc.

Most everyone here who is using their own universe are having to manually keep track of their own variables for determing decline in skills and length of time between bouts due to injury, so we definately know where you are coming from.

[Andreas Raht]

thebadguy, I read your post and couldn't tell you any news, so I didn't answer. I'm just discussing the issue with Jim through email, that needs some time... but here is what I can tell you already.

I hate it, when somebody posts on our forum and shouts and blames us that we don't answer immediately or at least the next day. We are absolutely NOT obligated to do so. We try to, but we're not obligated to. In almost 100% of the cases it's You doing this. I guess we should offer you a "software support contract with 24 hours call-back guarantee". Will cost $19.90 monthly for you, my friend, and that's a special offer.

Info regarding the active/retired issue will follow soon. But please tell me what has been different in TF2001 regarding the active/retired ratings? I really need to know this.

[Bronx Bomber 15]

I was under the impression that retired fighters (or those with "retired" status) ratings changed automatically when you changed their career stage. After all, isn't that what the career stage is for? I've had a pretty big difference in a fighters performances when changing their stages.

[thebadguy]

Andreas,

Because I like talking to the people on this forum, I will NOT "take the bait" and give you any ammo to use as a good excuse to ban me from this forum, which I know you would love to do. I suppose you could ban me anyway, without cause, and show me and everyone else just how powerful you are if that is what floats your boat. But anyway....

I didn't say anything negative about staff members not replying to this thread until a few days after it was posted and I realized that you had gone up and down the board answering questions but skipped right over mine, like it wasn't important at all. I realize that you guys at OOTP are really ticked off at me and probably always will be, but I didn't know that meant I would be ignored.

Thanks for the deal by the way, but I cant afford it right now, as soon as I can I will take you up on it. Immediate responses to questions sounds great, even though I dont demand them like you implied. It is my opinion that you are taking any critisizm of the game WAY too personally... afterall, this game is your "baby". I suppose I would take it personally as well, but I dont get paid to act like the customer is always right.

I dont know if you have noticed the quote I have at the end of all my messages, but it certainly is becoming more and more true on this forum isn't it? You certainly have to give me credit for living up to my nickname better than anyone else on here does. Thanks for your time, Andreas.

[thebadguy]

OH,

The difference in the ratings in TF2001 is that you could change the career stage of active fighters and everyone was rated as "prime" automatically in the pre-fight screen. Active or Retired, the career stage could be changed, and therefore it wasn't neccessary to do a whole bunch of "tweaking" when creating a universe.

If I understood correctly, in TF2001, for active fighters, "prime" simply meant the career stage that fighter was in when the game was released.

[Andreas Raht]

My pleasure, badguy.
And you can write whatever you want, everybody just reads this thread from your first post over your next one to mine and will know what YOU did wrong.

[Andreas Raht]

In TF2001 - as far as I know, and I've seen the whole source code - the game didn't change anything when you set an active fighter's career stage to whatever. Read the TF2001 manual please. If you could change it, that was just a bug. In the AdjustForCareerStage() function the active fighters have not been managed in any way.

[thebadguy]

All I said was that I was fairly disappointed that we hadn't heard any of your expertise yet. You could have taken it as a compliment. If it was a bug on TF2001, then EVERYONE had it.

[Andreas Raht]

OK! We'll check it out, and Jim will give you all the information which is needed to really understand this issue.

[thebadguy]

I think I understand the issue. I posted this thread to see if anyone has been able to find a way around the issue or better yet, if OOTP could put something in the game to let us get around the issue. Andreas, in all seriousness, I didn't mean to offend you or your work at all. Regardless of how you feel about me, I actually appreciate and respect you, Jim, and Tom especially, VERY MUCH! Even though this is "out of character" for me to say, I apologize if I offended you. I just wanted some feedback about creating universes the way we used to on TF2001. Peace.

[Andreas Raht]

Yup. Peace!