Edit names?

[kennedinho]

First off, congratulations to the dev for this little gem of a game. Really enjoying it, best boxing manager game I've played and I've played them all since World Championship Boxing Manager on my Amiga 500 back in the stone age, well done.
So i was wondering if there would be any possibility to edit the names of the fighters at your gym, to easier distinguish them from the computer generated ones as many fighters with similar names keep popping up.
Also, I've won all my 14-15 fights (2nd restart), 1 1/2 yrs into the game but still unknown rep. My fighters spend 2-3 months in camp before each fight and I'm matching them carefully, so my 2 fighters are still ranks in the vicinity of 50th in Western E. Tutorial say keep winning fights to increase your rep, but is there more to it as well?
And lastly, as I apprieciate the fluctuating xp in camp, it's generally too much imo. Same fighter receiving 45 in single attribute training one day, then raking a massive 197 the next( with lower energy, mind you), with same trainer or sometimes no trainer at all, makes it too random for tactical juggling in camp.
Anyways, considering the pricetag and this amount of gameplay i feel embarressed to be complaining. Keep up the good work!

[Aggroblakh]

I'm glad you enjoy the game!

Editing names isn't a bad idea. If I can compile enough changes to warrant a patch, I'll be sure to add it in, it's not a difficult thing to add.

As far as the manager reputation goes, it's intentionally slow compared to fighter reputations. There are two reasons for this:

a) You can have multiple fighters. Each of their wins contributes to your manager reputation.

b) Because students are generated with stats that correspond to your manager reputation, I was worried that making progression too fast would make the game too easy. One of my favourite things to do in Football Manager is to take a lower-league team and build them up. Once that happens, the game becomes too easy and repetitive. I wanted it to feel like an accomplishment to win a world title, so as a general rule you should find it very difficult (though not impossible :) ) to do so with your first "generation" of fighters.

That being said, if it's really too slow I can always adjust it. For what it's worth, if you've won 14-15 fights you shouldn't be too far off from moving up to "Local" level.

I might as well reveal a few details about how reputations work. Manager reputation growth is a fixed scale. A win will increase your reputation points, and a loss will decrease them (but not by as much - an equal number of wins and losses will still put you ahead). Fighter reputations, on the contrary, are based on recent form, so they will tend to fluctuate a lot more than manager reputation. Even an All-Time Great will be knocked down a peg if he loses a few in a row! It's worth noting that this doesn't take effect until after your fighter has fought at least 5 matches, otherwise his reputation would move up after like two fights.

For your rankings, try challenging fighters above you. It's one thing to simply win matches against hand-picked opponents, but if their ranks are lower than yours, or only slightly higher, then you will not gain much in the rankings. You can try to hunt for weaker opponents in higher ranks, or you can take a chance against an evenly-matched opponent.

The Training Camp issue is a good critique! I might have to take another look to see how I can balance it a bit more. Some randomness is good, but the last thing I want is for the player to feel as if his decisions don't matter.

Once again, thanks for playing! It means a lot to me that you like the game.

[kennedinho]

In hindsight, I had 13 wins. As on your thoughts on game progression speed, I must agree. Big fan of the FM-series too, and for the same reasons. My matckmaking strategy so far has been to take on Unknown boxers I know I can beat, closest, upward on the ladder and then secure the win with an extended camp.

But now I know all I need to do, is keep winning bouts, not change my strategy, so that's good.

If you make any changes, I'd love less fluctuation in camp. It's one of my favourite parts of the game, and although just temporarily, it is that one mechanism that can make your inferior fighter beating an otherwise superior opponent. (unless you're a tactical genius though, which i'm not.)

I shold have been more accurate, cause fluctuation is a nice touch, as in real life no one progress the same day in day out. So fluctuations in regular training, and "balanced" and "boxing style" in camp works much better. I tend to have them on balanced for a month or so and then use single skill focus, to fill in the blanks, so to speak, over the last couple of weeks. And that's when xp gets all over the place, making huge differences in the hectic last days of camp.

Thanks for the tips and reply

[Draa]

Look at the rankings for the region your fighter is located and pick people high up that rankings list to fight.

The rankings systen is a bit screwy and can be exploited very easily. I've noticed that Unknown fighters will be ranked higher than they should be so find one highly ranked on the list and schedule a fight. Look inside the Top 10 in your fighter's region and you'll find usually easy fighters to build your reputation and ranking against.

And fighting Local Name and Rising Star fighter when you start with a new fighter will usually get you to Local Name reputation within 5-7 fights (provided you win). You just need to schedule higher ranked opponents and your reputation will increase. I usually go straight to the rankings list and pick the highest ranked fighters I believe I can beat.

[kennedinho]

Problem sorted, I was only 3 matches away, 16 wins without losses, then manager rep up.

Funny, read some of your comments and it seems we've taken opposite strategies in the climbing process. Must say I'm impressed by your audacity to take on Local Names and Rising Stars with those weak fighters we're dealt initially, especially considering you don't spent much time in camp before matches.

I'm winning, but mostly due to careful matching, not tactical astutement. Btw, my swarmer only needed 2 wins to go from Local to Rising Star, so def some factors that increase fighter rep as well.

Keep those tips coming, Draa.

[Aggroblakh]

Originally posted by Draa:

The rankings systen is a bit screwy and can be exploited very easily. I've noticed that Unknown fighters will be ranked higher than they should be so find one highly ranked on the list and schedule a fight. Look inside the Top 10 in your fighter's region and you'll find usually easy fighters to build your reputation and ranking against.

This is true. I considered weighting the rankings so that the top slots would be populated by All-Time Greats, etc, but I figured this might have made it TOO hard to ascend the rankings for newer players. The presence of Unknown and Local Names in higher rankings is for the late game, so that new Students with high stats but low reputation have a pathway to higher rankings more easily. That being said, I might look into having the top 20 or so at least be of mid-level ranking. Now that you've pointed it out, I guess it is kind of weird to have such weak fighters ranked so highly.

Originally posted by kennedinho:

Btw, my swarmer only needed 2 wins to go from Local to Rising Star, so def some factors that increase fighter rep as well.

If you string together a bunch of wins in a row, your reputation will rise at a faster rate. Momentum and hype and all that :)

Thanks for playing!

[Draa]

Originally posted by Aggroblakh:

Originally posted by Draa:

The rankings systen is a bit screwy and can be exploited very easily. I've noticed that Unknown fighters will be ranked higher than they should be so find one highly ranked on the list and schedule a fight. Look inside the Top 10 in your fighter's region and you'll find usually easy fighters to build your reputation and ranking against.

This is true. I considered weighting the rankings so that the top slots would be populated by All-Time Greats, etc, but I figured this might have made it TOO hard to ascend the rankings for newer players. The presence of Unknown and Local Names in higher rankings is for the late game, so that new Students with high stats but low reputation have a pathway to higher rankings more easily. That being said, I might look into having the top 20 or so at least be of mid-level ranking. Now that you've pointed it out, I guess it is kind of weird to have such weak fighters ranked so highly.

Originally posted by kennedinho:

Btw, my swarmer only needed 2 wins to go from Local to Rising Star, so def some factors that increase fighter rep as well.

If you string together a bunch of wins in a row, your reputation will rise at a faster rate. Momentum and hype and all that :)

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, putting some better rep fighters in the top 25 would work. I don't believe it would lengthen the amount of time needed to reach #1 in the rankings. Or to get a title shot considering fighters won't take the fights if you aren't close to their reputation. It would also require people to work their way up the ranks properly because right now if you pick the right opponents you can be ranked #1 in a region in less than 12 fights. I think I did it in 8 with one fighter.

And you might also consider increasing the amount of money needed for upgrades. I've found it too easy to upgrade. In fact, one non title fight paid $24.5m with purse, ppv, and marketing contract. With that much money coming in the upgrades are way too easy and it takes almost nothing to max them out (or nearly max them out). I think that if it cost more money for upgrades, at least from level 6-10, it would give something to work for late game besides just a Title. After you reach level 10, money becomes meaningless. It would help to make it take longer to reach the top level upgrades.

[kennedinho]

Interesting what you say about the money flow. Come to think of, haven't seen any fighters claiming their share of the match profites yet though, do they stroll into your gym straight from the slave market?

[Draa]

Originally posted by kennedinho:

Interesting what you say about the money flow. Come to think of, haven't seen any fighters claiming their share of the match profites yet though, do they stroll into your gym straight from the slave market?

Now that would be interesting. If a fighter took part of the profits for a fight it would balance out the upgrade costs because we'd have less money coming in after a fight. I like it.

And if we had a money ranking list that would be the icing on the cake. Maybe a list that instead of regions it was just total money reagrdless of weight class or region.

It would certainly give players something else to shoot for and that can't hurt.

[Aggroblakh]

Hey all,

Funny thing about the ability to edit names. I just realized that, since first name and last name are displayed in the same field, I would have to differentiate the two based on spaces. Thus, "Jean Claude Van Damme" would make "Jean" the first name, and the last name would be "Claude Van Damme." If you guys are okay with not being able to have first names composed of more than one word, I'll go ahead and add this feature in.

[Sycy76]

Sounds great

[kennedinho]

Ah, good stuff, working well!

[Sycy76]

When you create the editor, can you allow us to edit records as well? The more I play, the more rediculous it is to see main events with fighter records of 0-0, 0-1, or 1-1. I have three fighters with at least a 5-0 record and haven't broke the top 20 yet. Pretty crazy!