How do rivalries work?

[King Zonkey Jong]

I am really confused because I had a rivalry with Randy Orton and I won every (or at least most) of the matches I played against him, inctuding the last one and it said that he won the rivalry, so why did he win and what's the point of rivalries if you're still gonna lose it?

[Late Game Wonder]

the rivalries in career mode turned out to be pretty badly done, it is just so linear when they happen, the best part of career mode is when you are not locked in a rivalry

[鬦 Jericho 鬦]

hahaha i'm in a rivalry with dean ambrose and the game thinks its with neville... i fight neville all the time... and ambrose gets the rivalrypoints .... dumb dumb dumb....

[King Zonkey Jong]

Maybe it's because the Authority doesn't like me, I rarely do their challenges

[Timur]

The whole system is even worse than before. I don't know what they were thinking with this. Was anyone going "Man, the rivalries in WWE 2k16 really were too short!"

Not they go on for months and in like 8 of 10 fights you will fight your rival...again and again and again and again.

Like the feud between Sasha and Charlotte went on for about half of 2016 and they had maybe 12-15 matches in over 6 months on TV often in very different set-ups like mixed tag teams and so on. In 2k17 you will have about 3 matches in 2 weeks on average with your rival and almost every single match is a boring normal 1 on 1 match and this then goes on for at least 2 months, often even longer...

That is one of the reasons, I switched to Universe Mode and basically are booking myself now with a rough story in my head to go along with the feuds and promos.

[Diberion]

I'm actually having a huge problem with the rival.. it's been a year and I'm still having to fight him... I can't do any promos to raise my shirt sales so I just have to keep on doing these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 1v1 fights to raise my VC.

[Late Game Wonder]

yeah it is really bad that basically 90% of the matches are 1v1 with no stipulation or nothing

[S.Nova]

everything in WWE2K17 is tied to popularity so the higher it is the more t-shirts you'll sell and the better the mode plays out also you need to make sure you stick to either Face or Heel for the duration of MyCareer

[ShadowAngel]

Originally posted by S.Nova:

also you need to make sure you stick to either Face or Heel for the duration of MyCareer

Face Heel doesn't really seem to play a role in Career. I'm a face, i'm in a feud with Big E who is a face and my best friend is Seth Rollins who is a Heel and i didn't do promos to get there, it was all the game deciding that.

The Career is really, really bad once again and i don't get it. 2K knows how to make a career mode interesting (NBA 2K) and there are lots of old games that show how to make something like a career mode work (WWF Smackdown Shut your Mouth & Here comes the Pain, from the same developers even!) or how to make a good story mode (Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special comes to mind) or even how to make a "career" ladderstyle good (WWF Attitude, where you started with dark matches and had to climb up to Heat, then Smackdown, then Raw and getting the belts)
So it's kinda sad that all we get as Career is basically the WWE Universe mode, just without the control and freedom we have in that mode.

[AJ]

I had a similar problem until yesterday. I was in a rivalry with Sami Zayn in the main roster while targeting the Tag Team Title with the Miz. The rivalry didn't seem to end, I couldn't do any promos or backstage attacks on him. I had to fight about 20 times against him, won about 15, also at many PPVs, but didnt get any rival points, they didn't change in any direction. Strangely I sometimes climbed in the Tag Team ranking through beating him. Then, about 1 year after the rivalry started, a few weeks after Wrestlemania before the intro of Smackdown there came a trailer about rivalries in WWE, such as the trailers you see at the beginning of the career. In the next match against him I earned rivalry points for the first time. In the next match I attacked him after I defeated him in the victory celebration and beat him up to get rivalry points. After the match there came 'Your relationship with Sami Zayn has improved, your rivalry has ended', although I beat him up after the match before.
It looks like the game somehow didn't recognize that I was in a rivalry before that trailer appeared and for that reason it didn't give me any rivalry points or chances to earn them. That seems to be the problem.