Mechanics/Tactics?

[Wenzel]

As the tutorials and manual are quite lacking, I wanted to ask how the game mechanics actually work, and how to develop tactics to play "better".

My impressions so far:

1. HEALTH BARS / YOUR WRESTLER'S DAMAGE STATUS

Your character's health bar features green, red and grey health. Green and red health shrinks down to the left side of the bar, while grey health (=permanent damage) builds up from the right side of the bar.

Basics - damage
How much damage a move inflicts depends on the class/type of the move, your wrestler's corresponding stats (all moves are driven by one of your wrestler's stats - arm/leg power, grapple offense, etc. - you can check this out in the move set) and maybe also by the targeted wrestler's limb "durability" stat (each move targets a specific limb).

1a. Green Health (health buffer)

As long as you still have green heatlh left, any damage you take is applied to it. Once it is gone, your red health gets exposed and any further damage you take will cause some permanent damage and increase the difficulty of the pin escape mini game for you.

If you don't suffer damage for some time, your green health slowly regenerates and fills up, but capped at your current permanent damage level (grey bar, building up from the right side of the bar). Note that as it regenerates, your green health will also recover your red health!

1b. Red Health (recoverable core health)
Red health has two effects: 1) the lower it is, the more difficult the pin escape becomes; 2) 2) it "unlocks" your paybacks (see 2c below). Your red health shrinks whenever you take damage while your green health is depleted. Red health regenerates when your regenerating green health exceeds its current level.

1c. Grey Health (permanent damage, unrecoverable health loss)
Grey health is permanent damage. You suffer permanent damage whenever the opponent hits you while your green health is depleted, but note that weak attacks inflict relatively little permanent damage. Your health (both red and green) can never regenerate beyond your current permanent damage. So the more permanent damage you've taken, the easier it is to inflict even more permanent damage on you (as your "shield/buffer" shrinks).

1d. Body Parts

All attacks (even if the target has some green health buffer left) deal damage to body parts. The corresponding body part will "blink" (on the UI at the bottom of the screen) when taking damage. Depending on a limb's damage status, it will be more difficult to escape submission holds that that target that specific body part. I'm not sure whether it also affects recovery time. When a limb takes a large amount of damage in a single blow, there is a chance for it to bleed (I had this happening right at the start of a match, so I don't think it depends on total amount of damage accumulated on the limb so far).

Body parts can be more or less resistant, based on your wrestler's stats (hitpoint-distribution on limbs, you can only access this this particular menu via "extres/roster/edit superstars" for whatever reason). In contrast to "hitpoint distribution", I suppose that the "limb durability" stat instead just decreases the overall amount of damage you suffer when that particular limb is targeted, but I'm not sure at all.

1e. Stunned
Stun effects seem to be triggered by suffering a certain amount of damage within a certain amount of time. Note that light attacks deal more stun than damage (they're pretty effective in causing stuns). While you're stunned, you can't use reversals, break grapples, use paybacks or fast recoveries. So, being stunned opens you up for a big move....Note that a stunned opponent can still kick out of pins (not sure if it has any influence on the pin difficulty at all)

1f. Recovery time
How long does your opponent take to get up on his feet again? While this is probably one of the most important aspects of the game, it is not explained at all. To some extent, I get the impression that it's perhaps a counter? The more often you've been down in the match so far, the longer it will take for you to get up? Not sure if/how red/grey health or limb damage may play into that...

If you have 1/3 of your blue meter full, you can consume it for an instant recovery. When you're down, you can also quickly spam light attack to speed recovery up a little bit. If you do so, there will be some arrows displayed next to your body damage UI.

1g. Stamina
Stamina is only displayed once you run low. Running and dodging obviously depletes stamina. I also found that carrying an opponent quickly depletes stamina (probably related to strength/weight). More tests are needed. I suppose that simply doing attacks also depletes stamina, or at least interrupts recovery. Whats the consequence of being out of stamina? Needs further testing...

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2. BLUE METER

2a. Generation
The blue bar fills up when you hit your opponent, escape their pin, reverse their attack/break their grapple attack. I suppose that the more spectacular/heavy the attack you perform, the more meter you gain. Note that wrestlers that use the "high flyer" style gain extra meter from air attacks (dives, springboard). You can boost your blue meter generation by performing a crowd taunt (<-).

2c. Paybacks
You can perform a payback if your blue bar exceeds your current red health. You will note that there is a small white line displayed in your blue bar, indicating the required threshold. Using a payback consumes all (or 2/3?) of your blue meter. This means that paybacks are cheaper/more efficient if you have low health. You can only use each of your two paybacks once per match.

2d. Fast Recovery
A fast recovery requires/consumes 2/3 (or was it 1/3?!) of your blue meter.

2e. Signatures
A signature requires and consumes your entire blue meter. Hitting with a signature gives you a time window in which it will be slightly more difficult for your opponent to escape your pin-attempt. Also, the more signatures you have landed on your opponent already, the more difficult it gets. Both effects can be adjusted in the options menu/gameplay/advanced. Hitting with your signature also rewards you with a finsiher (edit: not quite, seems more like 50% of a finisher bar? https://youtu.be/iXscyRscnA0?si=jF1J6O4wq56yrY0k&t=283 [at 4:43]).

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3. YELLOW METER

3.a Generation
The yellow meter seems to fill up quite similarly to your blue meter (see above), but generally slowlier. You can boost it by performing an opponent's taunt (->).

3b. Finishers
The meter is divided into three parts. Each filled up part provides you with one finisher. If you have all three parts full, you can perform a super-finisher (if it's in your wrestler's repertoire). Apart from inflicting lots of damage, hitting your opponent with a finisher gives you a time window in which it will be more difficult for him to escape your pin attempt. Also, the more finishers you have landed on your opponent already, the more difficult it gets. Both effects can be adjusted in the options menu/gameplay/advanced. Note: When performing a finisher, you do not lose the progress you had acquired for the next finisher. I.e. if your meter is 150% full and you perform a finisher, you will still have 50% meter left.

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4. DEFENCE

4a. Basics
There are essentially 2 types of moves in the game (apart from power/submission holds and pins):
1) Attacks. Attacks can be countered by reversals. Attacks are performed by pressing light or heavy attack directly.
2) Grapples. Grapples can be countered by breakers. Grapples are performed by pressing grapple, usually followed by light or heavy attack. While standing, the opponent can also opt for an irish whip (grapple again).
Note: Combo strings can also be broken.
Note: Not all grapple attacks automatically use your wrestler's "grapple offense" stat, some are powered by legs/arms, etc.
Note: Bigger grapple attacks have a reversal window built into them. So if you mess up the grapple break, you might still be able to reverse...

4b. Dodge
If you're still on your feet, you can dodge any type of moves by tapping R1 and holding the stick in the appropriate direction. You can dodge anything, but it uses up quite a lot of stamina.

4c. Block
While you're still on your feet and not dizzy, you can block attacks by holding defense (triangle), in order to greatly reduce damage. You cannot block running attacks or grapples (which are very common...).

4d. Reversals
Reversals are used to counter an opponent's attack. There is no limit on reversals, they do not consume any of your meter. You can't conduct reversals while you're stunned (and/or out of stamina?) though. In order to successfully reverse an attack, press defense during your opponent's move's reversal window. The window is specific to the move itself, to the difficulty level you're playing on, and it is also influenced by your wrestlers reversal stat. A successfull reversal will give you a nice chunk of meter.

4e. Breakers
Breakers are used to counter an opponent's grapple attack (or combo chain). There is no limit on breakers and they do not consume any of your meter. You can't conduct breakers while you're stunned (and/or out of stamina?). In order to successfully break a grapple attack, you need to match your opponent's input (light/heavy/grapple) immediately after he initiates the grapple. Unlike for reversals, there is no indicator on your screen to tell you when you ought to press. I suppose that the time window for breakers is a bit more generous than that for reversals? You have to practice the timing. And then it's still a 50/50 mixup (or 33/33/33 including the irish whip) most of the time...

Breakers work both against standing grapple attacks and grapple attacks that target you while you're on the ground (prone or suppine). I'm not sure whether you can also break a carry or drag (I don't think so...).

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While my knowledge on game mechanics is still very poor, here are some tactical ideas:

You want to reverse and break as much as possible. There are no downsides to it. When on offense, go for a good mixup in order to make defense harder for your opponent. Grapples are great because there is always a 50/50 miss chance. Also, vary your attacks in order not to become predictable.

If you have the upper hand on the green health bar, be aggressive. If you're behind on the green bar, you may want to slow things down a bit, so that your health can recover. You might perform fast attacks that are hard to reverse, or throw the opponent out of the ring, or prefer grapples over attacks (as described above, grapples are somewhat less risky). Don't give the opponent easy reversals if your green bar is low.

Do not fail to land your signature or finisher. As recovery time is quite unpredictable, try to go for the safe option and stun your opponent before you commit a special attack.

Fast recoveries and paybacks might seem sweet, but you will be missing out on your signature move (and thus a finisher) if you use them too much. Also, think twice about when you use your payback abilities - they get cheaper if you're low on red health.

In general, you win by pinning your opponent immediately after landing a finisher on them when their red health is depleted. (Or by conducting a submission hold that targets a limb which has suffered maximum damage, particularly if you're playing a technician-wrestler).

--> In order to deplete your opponent's red health, you need to deal big damage and/or have long, continous attack streaks. If you "lose the right of way", if your attack streak gets interrupted, your opponent will start to recover their green health buffer, thus protecting their red health. There is a snowball effect to this, because the more you've had your opponent exposed (the more permanent damage he has suffered), the smaller their maximum health buffer gets.
--> In order to acquire finishers, you should be on the offense as much as possible, use spectacular moves and taunts.

[chowdah908]

The fact it takes this much to understand the mechanics of a wrestling game it's no wonder this game is so sluggish and boring to play.... The ambulance match on the old ds felt more fun to play than the one they have in this game.

Why can't we just get a WWE game with the gameplay of hctp and visuals of modern games

[AskornDorn]

Originally posted by chowdah908:

The fact it takes this much to understand the mechanics of a wrestling game it's no wonder this game is so sluggish and boring to play.... The ambulance match on the old ds felt more fun to play than the one they have in this game.

Why can't we just get a WWE game with the gameplay of hctp and visuals of modern games

I completely disagree, I enjoy the complexity, I enjoy making characters that specialise in say.. working the arms!

It's not for everyone sure, but HCTP was so basic in design there was very little depth, still a blast! one of my faves (tied with Just Bring it) but still.

I think a lot of players underestimate themselves? like, easy/normal is ridiculously easy... whack it on legend, and its a lot more fun xD

[Wenzel]

Some notes on controls, also for my own documentation:

OPPONENT MANIPULATION

Standing opponent

• right stick up: sit down opponent
  
• right stick right/left: change opponent's facing (front/rear)
  
• grapple, then:
  - grapple, directed at corner: throw opponent into corner
  - grapple (hold), directed at ropes: throws opponent out of the ring (will end up ringside)
  - R1: carry opponent (if strong enough). You can then carry him to the ropes and throw him out by pressing grapple again or smash him using an attack. (Use right stick to switch carry type). Note that wrestlers can break out of carries (wrestler with the fighting style "powerhouse" have an easier time to carry/prevent being carried). It may also use a lot of stamina, depending on the weight/strength ratio.
  - L1: drags opponent, works a bit similar to the irish whip. You can send the opponent to the corner or to the apron (will only work if you're not too far away from the ropes; if you're too far away, the opponent will instead bounce from the rope instead of going over it). If you use it while being on the ringside, you can use this to throw the opponent back into the ring (make sure to aim at the ropes, not at the corners).

Opponent on the ground

• right stick up: make opponent stand up (then see above)
  
• unconfirmed: grapple + right stick up: make opponent sit
  
• right stick right/left: change opponent's facing (suppine/prone)
  
• grapple, then:
  - L1: drags the opponent on the ground, usefull for positioning him for a air attack from the ropes

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AREA MOVEMENT (ring/apron/ringside/ropes)

To exit the ring
- Run towards the ropes (not corner!) and tap R1 for a fast exit to the ringside.
- While standing at the ropes, continue holding left stick at the ropes, will exit to apron.
- While standing at the ropes, tap R1, will exit to apron.
- While standing at the ropes, hold R1, will exit to ringside.
- While standing at the ropes, press L1 + light attack to perform a springboard/air attack against an opponent in ringside (needs to be in your wrestler's repertoire).
- Suicide Dive: not sure how to pull it off...
- You can climb to the top rope/corner (see below, ropes) and perform a dive attack to ringside.

To enter the ring from ringside
- Run towards the ropes (not corner) for a fast entry into the ring.
- While standing at the ropes, continue holding left stick at the ropes, will enter to apron.
- While standing at the ropes tap R1, will enter to apron.
- While standing at the ropes hold R1, will enter to ring.

While on apron
- Tap R1 and hold left stick towards ring or ringside.
- Just keep holding left stick towards ring or ringside.
- L1 + light attack for springboard attacks (if they're in your wrestler's repertoire)

Ropes
- Run into the corner to climb the top rope.
- While in the corner, tap R1 to climb the middle rope.
- While in the corner, hold R1 to climb the top rope.
- While on a rope, press R1 to cancel and climb down.

[Wenzel]

Does anyone know how to perform a suicide dive?

[Wenzel]

Originally posted by Omegagon:

Suicide Dive - Press light attack while running at the ropes with opponent standing within range outside the ring. If they are down press up taunt to get them set up.

Thank you, will try! :)
EDIT: While running towards the tope, you need to press both R1 (right bumper) and light attack. If you don't press R1, your wrestler will just rebound from the ropes.

[Wenzel]

Notes on submission holds

• Submission holds are holds that trigger the mini game and can make the opponent tap out.
  
• They're all require R2 (right trigger) + grapple as an input.
  
• They can be performed against a standing or grounded opponent (3 variants - with you standing at legs, side, head), or when you catch an opponent's leg (by reversing a kick at your guts).
  
• Submission holds can be reversed normally. They have a reversal window. I'm not sure which reversal stat influences this window (there are only stats for strike, grapple, aerial reversal - no specific stat for submission reversal)
  
• The difficulty of the minigame supposedly depends on the damage status of the limb that is targeted by the move (all submission holds target a specific body part*). If your wrestler is a "technician", you might get a bonus?
  
• Sumission holds inflict damage over time. The longer you're stuck in the hold, the more damage you accumulate. But there is a cap at some point (maximum amount of damage a single hold can inflict). As the amount of damage is continous but small, holds do not inflict a lot of permanent damage. They do drain your green/red health though. The amount of damage inflicted per tick supposedly depends on your wrestler's power/technical submission offense and the targeted wrestler's power/technical submission defensem and perhaps also on the targeted limb's durability stat? Don't underestimate how much damage submission holds can inflict. They're not just a means to end the game, but also to inflict damage! Often I find myself concentrated on the mini game and only later notice how much health I have lost!
  
• If the hold you're performing is not going your way, you should release it (press L1). If the opponent breaks out, it's basically a reversal. Once the "pointer" is about 75% against you, you will no longer be allowed to cancel the hold. You you have to decide a bit early, not "last minute".

There are other moves that look a bit like holds, but they don't trigger the minigame/can't make the opponent tap out. And they're usually based on grapple offense, not power/tech hold.

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* It's a bit difficult to figure out sometimes - the move in the move set editor often shows several bodyparts that take damage from the move. I suppose that if you sort the moves by head/arms/legs, you know which limb is targeted. Note that limb durability and limb hitpoint distribution may affect how fast limbs get damaged.

[Wenzel]

New discoveries for me:

1) The maximum stats you can set for any wrestler depend on their weight class. The heavier, the higher their maximum allowed power submission off/def, durability (damage reduction), strength. And the lower their reversal skills, tech submission off/def, air and running offense, stamina, move speed, recovery time, etc. For the lighter wrestlers, it's vice versa. So, for example, very heavy wight wrestlers have on average a harder time to reverse attacks (low reversal stats/shorter reversal windows), but they also suffer fewer damage from them (high durability stats).

2) There are a lot of gameplay related sliders (basic reversal window duration, stamina consumption and recovery, stun accumulation and duration, health recovery speed, etc etc) hidden in the options/balancing menu. Scroll down (the come after all the AI sliders!) to the bottom of the options list.

If you make stamina more strict, an irish whip can be used to drain your opponent's stamina pretty effectively.

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My latest take on wrestler's stats:

These stats have an influence on how much damage you deal with corresponding attacks:

• arm power
  
• leg power
  
• running offense
  
• aerial offense
  
• grapple offense
  
• power submission offense
  
• technical submission offense
  
• NOTE: The tooltip/explantion of the submission offense stats seems to suggest that the stat only affects the damage dealt by submission holds, not have an actual effect on the difficulty of the minigame

These stats have an influence on how much damage you take when suffering an attack that targets a specific body part or when being submitted to a power/tech hold:

• body durability
  
• arm durability
  
• leg durability
  
• power submission defense
  
• technical submission defense

• NOTE: There is no durability stat for the head. So I suppose that damage mitigation to the head is the same for all wrestlers?

These stats help you to avoid enemy attacks by affecting your reversal windows:

• strike reversal
  
• grapple reversal
  
• aerial reversal
  
• NOTE: I suppose that grapple reversal only affects the reversal windows that some bigger grapple moves have? It does not refer to the time window for breaking a grapple?

Other stats:

• pin escape - influeces the difficulty of the pin-minigame
  
• recovery - how fast your wrestler tends to get up
  
• special/finisher - influences how fast your blue/yellow meter increases
  
• stamina - how much stamina you have
  
• move speed - how fast your wrestler moves
  
• agility - how fat you climb the corner, allegedly also determines your dodge animation (high agility wrestlers roll?).

HITPOINT DISTRIBUTION (access via Options/Roster/Edit Superstars)

Each wrestler has 4000 total hitpoints that are spread out across all their limbs (head/arms/body/legs). I suppose that this influences how much damage needs to be done to body parts until their damage status increases(which only matters for submission holds?, perhaps also for recovery time?)

[Kasen410]

How do I do a strong Irish whip towards the ropes? The game description makes ZERO sense.

[Zeokage]

If you're meant to throw someone outside the ring, hold the button instead of tapping it.

[chowdah908]

You know this games mechanics are horrible when a moderator has to explain how to do a basic move.

[Kasen410]

Originally posted by Zeokage:

If you're meant to throw someone outside the ring, hold the button instead of tapping it.

Thats what I've been doing. I hold down all the buttons it tells me too but instead of throwing the opponent out of the ring it sends them to the corner.

[Selenium]

I've been really struggling consistently getting opponents "stunned against the ropes." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, for no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. There are some cool moves in that category to use as finisher for created wrestlers, it would be nice to be able to pull them off more consistently.

[Zeokage]

Originally posted by GG101:

Originally posted by Zeokage:

If you're meant to throw someone outside the ring, hold the button instead of tapping it.

Thats what I've been doing. I hold down all the buttons it tells me too but instead of throwing the opponent out of the ring it sends them to the corner.

Then it's the direction that's the issue, something I've hit myself. Be very precise in your up, down, left or right and hold that direction before pressing down the Irish Whip button.

Originally posted by Selenium:

I've been really struggling consistently getting opponents "stunned against the ropes." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, for no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. There are some cool moves in that category to use as finisher for created wrestlers, it would be nice to be able to pull them off more consistently.

Sometimes you just have to stun them and drag them to the ropes.

[Zeokage]

Originally posted by Zeokage:

Originally posted by GG101:

Thats what I've been doing. I hold down all the buttons it tells me too but instead of throwing the opponent out of the ring it sends them to the corner.

Then it's the direction that's the issue, something I've hit myself. Be very precise in your up, down, left or right and hold that direction before pressing down the Irish Whip button.

Originally posted by Selenium:

I've been really struggling consistently getting opponents "stunned against the ropes." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, for no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. There are some cool moves in that category to use as finisher for created wrestlers, it would be nice to be able to pull them off more consistently.

Sometimes you just have to stun them and drag them to the ropes.

Originally posted by chowdah908:

You know this games mechanics are horrible when a moderator has to explain how to do a basic move.

I don't see how, really.

[Selenium]

Originally posted by Zeokage:

Sometimes you just have to stun them and drag them to the ropes.

I just played two matches and in the first, I stunned my opponent and dragged them to the ropes with a single press of L1, worked fine. Then did my "stunned against the ropes" finisher and won. In the second match I tried the exact same thing with the same wrestler and it didn't work, I just chucked my opponent onto the apron. No, I did not hold L1 to initiate a "hard drag"(if such a thing exists). Who knows.

This is one of my only gripes, the vagueness and occasional inconsistency with the mechanics. maybe they explain it in the franchise mode which I haven't played, but I didn't even realize until this post that you can essentially use your fireball/poison/etc paybacks whenever you want...all this time, after 150+ hours I thought I had to wait for a very specific context-specific prompt to pop up. So I wasn't using those at all. Whoops.

And I've got like 200 hours in this game now, but a huge chunk of that has been wasted basically in the create-a-wrestler stuff. It seems quite powerful but needs a TON of QoL improvements. You have to trial and error your way through selecting wrestler pyrotechnics, as an example. They don't have any sort of separate categories for "this pyrotechnic go bang" and "this pyrotechnic is eerie smoke", etc.

Still my favorite wrestling game since the N64 days.