What if Smackdown games had numbered ratings?

[SmashMan]

Just an idea I've been toying around with, that I think could work well in the Smackdown games. I guess you could liken it to old ratings from EWR, but I was thinking more along the lines of your everyday sports game.

You could have speed, strength, agility, technical wrestling, charisma, etc...as the "main" type of ratings, but then there would also be separate tendency ratings for how often they use those attributes.

I'm thinking tendency would be stuff like "attack head/legs/body", "play to crowd", "attempt submission", "use springboard moves", "strike frequency", "grapple frequency", "use weapons"...stuff like that.

It would be a huge undertaking, I can imagine; but I think it would definitely help distinguish all the different wrestlers aside from the current abilities.

I was actually hoping to mock up a few screenshots, but it turns out I'm pretty terrible at doing that.

...anyone else ever think about something like this?

[PantherBeast_OS]

SD vs raw series have never had ratings. They never will to be honest. It is just a wreslting game not a sports game. It's a game where you throw guys through tables and chairs and other stuff. The only ratings they got is overall. I really don't think THQ would waste their time with adding other ratings beside the overall on this kind of game. That just ain't going to happen.

[SmashMan]

I doubt it would happen either, but I'm trying to think of ways to differentiate the wrestlers. As it is now, every AI guy wrestles the same in these games (90% of offense is strikes to build to finisher).

With some exceptions, the guys have these decent movesets, but the AI never uses them. If they added tendency types of ratings to at least trigger the AI to act appropriately (submission guys target down specific parts of body, high flyers hit you with their speed/agility) it would be a huge step in the right direction.

I don't expect 100% realism (because how can you accurately emulate a choreographed wrestling match, you know?) but right now it's still too much of a fighting game. At some points, it may as well be Tekken in a wrestling ring.

[DakkoN]

I'm not sure what you guys are talking about... Smackdown games have had ratings AND tendencies for a LONG time now...

[SmashMan]

They've had ratings, but I'd argue they're pretty much just for show. The only rating that currently seems to matter in a Smackdown game is overall.

And they haven't had tendencies, unless I'm totally blanking. They have abilities, which are a nice addition but aren't used much by the CPU AI. Tendencies, as I'm referring to them, would be for the AI to wrestle you as they (theoretically) would in real life; meaning a submission-style wrestler would wear you down with holds...a brawler would just beat the crap out of you...a high flyer would (for lack of a better word) fly at you from all angles. In my example, a pure submission guy would have an "uses holds" tendency of 100, where a total brawler would have it at 0.

Right now, with a roster of around 60 (and however many end up being in SDvsRaw 2011) everybody is too still similar, is my point.

[DakkoN]

They had 2 selectable logic settings that was a dumbed down version of tendencies. Stuff like Grapple/Striking/Flying.. seems like there were 6 total.

Fire Pro had very detailed logic but it's also a sim wrestling game. I think you're asking too much from a purely arcade game in Smackdown. It's almost been the exact same game since 2002.. They usually add one gimmick to get buyers, they're probably not going to add anything groundbreaking until they redo the engine

[SmashMan]

I know.