Alright Boyz, here we go!! World Boxing Manager

[Umbrella]

I know this board loves its sports management games, so here's a thread about a new one I just picked up for $5. I haven't had it long, so I'm not an expert by any means, but here are my thoughts so far.

You start out as the manager of a pretty pathetic gym, no fighters, no trainers, and a measly $7500. You don't get to choose your fighters. As the game goes on, within a few days students will start showing up at your gym. It's up to you to decide if you want to keep them or not. Higher reputation gyms attract better students, so at the start, you get the dregs.

Students serve a few purposes. One, they bring in a very small amount of money in fees to work out at your gym. Two, if any of them look promising, you can promote them to a professional fighter. More on that in a bit. And finally, they make good sparring partners.

At the start, your gym is tiny, so it can only support three students, one professional (which I think is called a fighter), and one trainer. You can upgrade, but it costs quite a bit of money. I believe it is $20K for the first upgrade, which I haven't got to yet. Students and fighters have different styles. They can be boxers, sluggers, counter punchers, etc. There is a rock-paper-scissors approach to this. It isn't mentioned in the help file anywhere, but on the progress day screen, there are tips which say which style is good or poor against others.

Once you promote a fighter, that's when things get more interesting. At that point, you can start training them, and looking for fights. Training took me a little while to figure out. There is training, and training camps. Training is always available, and training camps are available when you have a fight scheduled. From what I gather, training is more long term development. Training camps are short term development for your specific fight. However, any stat gains made during training camp are lost after the fight, while training is permanent. The difference is that training is SLOOOOOW, while training camps can make gains quickly.

You can either set up your fights, or sometimes you will get a message from someone requesting a fight. One of my complaints about the game is that the documentation for it isn't very good. I'm still a bit unsure about the matchmaking portion of the game. There are a lot of options, and I don't 100% know how they all work. You can set up PPV, and determine payouts, and also where the fight is on the card (undercard, main event, etc.). I think this has something to do with the fighter reputation, but I haven't found an explanation anywhere about it.

The fights themselves are primarily text based. You can set up strategies each round, such as use the jab more, go for the head, and things like that. After each round they show a lot of stats which can help you decide what is working and what isn't. There is a graphical portion which shows where you are in the ring, but I don't think it is particularly useful.

You can also hire trainers. I don't have a lot of experience with them, since they are pretty pricey. I hired one guy, but he wouldn't sign for under $1K/month. Needless to say, he drained my accounts pretty quickly. Trainers help your fighters advance their abilities quicker, but you don't have to have them. The other thing besides upgrading the gym is you can upgrade equipment, which is supposed to help with training. Once again, that is $10K, and I haven't had enough money to do that yet.

I've spent a lot of talk about money. That is the biggest hurdle. Your unknown fighters are only pulling in about $100 per fight, and your students bring in very little as well. Making money is extremely difficult. The designer is pretty active on the steam message boards, and he mentioned marketing is the best way to make money for fledgling gyms. I didn't know about marketing, so I haven't tried this yet.

The game seems surprisingly deep for $5. For example, I scheduled my first fight, started training, and found out my fight got cancelled because my fighter didn't make weight. Oops. Turns out I didn't schedule the fight far out enough in advance. Come to find out, there is a hidden stat which determines how well fighters do with making weight. All fighters are fictional, which may turn some people off. But so far I am enjoying it.

As I mentioned, my biggest complaint is the help file isn't very complete, so I'm doing a lot of trial and error right now. On the message boards, there were a lot of complaints that sim time was extremely slowr, but the designer found the problem this weekend, and the results seem to be much improved. I haven't had any sim time issues so far.

Anybody else playing this, and have any tips or advice?

[Umbrella]

Dola, I found these tips from the designer.

Use Marketing The Marketing screen exists for two gameplay-related reasons:
a) To give you a reason to continue fighting in regional events even after your fighters have made it to the world stage. Events sanctioned by world organizations cannot be covered by a network hired on the Marketing screen.
b) To give you, the player, a way to earn money before your fighter has gotten good enough to headline events and command decent fight purses.
Use it as much as possible to farm money early game.
Watch your finances
Training outside of training camps is free, but once you have a match set up and start a training camp, training will cost money per day (except Resting). Keep an eye on your funds so you can take full advantage of Training Camps.
Watch your weight
Following on from the previous point, be sure to schedule enough time before a match to make weight, especially if your fighter has to cut a lot or is not great at cutting weight easily.
Spar often
There is no penalty for sparring, and you can unlock Natural Traits by doing so. This will allow you to both test your fighters (and students) against one another an potentially unlock useful Traits that can give you an extra edge.
Fight often
Only gains made in training outside of training camps is permanent. However, because training outside of training camps is primarily determined by your Equipment Upgrade levels, it's almost not really worth it to try and do so early in the game. Your time is best used fighting as much as possible to earn Network payouts in order to upgrade your Equipment as fast as possible.

[korme]

For $5, just purchased. I'll dive into it tomorrow.

[Suicane75]

I'll buy that for 5 dollars!

[Umbrella]

The designer pointed me to this page. It has a ton of useful hints.

Articles - World Boxing Manager - Indie DB

[djsatu]

Can you customize the fighters names and stats?

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by djsatu

Can you customize the fighters names and stats?

I think you can change the names, but not their stats.

[PilotMan]

Picked it up.

Just getting started with it, will pass more information along later, but I like the multiple regional organizations and separate rankings for each.

[korme]

It needs more user-feedback. I never know if a match is accepted, or really exactly what to do beyond that. It has the skeleton of a good game, but there's work to do.

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by korme

It needs more user-feedback. I never know if a match is accepted, or really exactly what to do beyond that. It has the skeleton of a good game, but there's work to do.

You have to check your email the day after you propose a match. From there, it will tell you if it was accepted. One of the suggestions on the message board is to add some sort of notification to let you know that you have an email. The designer has said he will look into how difficult that would be to implement. It is something that I wish was in there, since I have to manually check email every day.

If the match was accepted, you can start a training camp if you want. On the training screen, at the bottom, there is a button that says training camp. From there, you can assign your fighter, a trainer (if you have one), and the type of schedule you need. Learn from my mistakes and keep an eye on your weight. See how well, or poorly, your fighter does with losing weight. From there, you can get an idea of how much in advance you need to schedule matches in order to make weight.

You can also start marketing the fight, but I don't know how to do that. But I've heard that is the best way to make money for the early gyms.

[korme]

I didn't even realize there was email. Now that I'm aware of that, I'm moving a little smoother. But still.. that is my point! I didn't even know there was an inbox or where to check it!

[korme]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

You can also start marketing the fight, but I don't know how to do that. But I've heard that is the best way to make money for the early gyms.

In my experience starting out you almost exclusively have to use Burnett PPV as your starting marketing network at 150 cost FYI

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by djsatu

Can you customize the fighters names and stats?

Originally Posted by Umbrella

I think you can change the names, but not their stats.

Create a fighter called Todd Zilla, let me know how he does

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

Create a fighter called Todd Zilla, let me know how he does

As long as you don't mind being a super featherweight. So far, all the non completely sucky fighters that come to my crappy gym are in that weight class.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by korme

I didn't even realize there was email. Now that I'm aware of that, I'm moving a little smoother. But still.. that is my point! I didn't even know there was an inbox or where to check it!

Read through the help file. There's lots of little good bits of info in there.

[Ramzavail]

wishlisted, will wait to hear more