The Quest For CPU-CPU Submissions

[JAMRenaissance]

I'm one of those types that will let the game wrestle itself based on my setup, and by default it's hard to use characters like Rusev to get submission wins. After a LOT of modification, I have managed to get some CPU-CPU submission wins on Legend.

Sometimes.

I think some of the stuff I'm doing isn't really affecting anything, and some of it is actually causing a change. What are some thoughts on how to try to rig for submissions?

(1) I modified everyone's Health bars in my universe to set the Body and Head to 35% and the Legs and Arms to 15%.

(2) Everyone's Head and Body Durability is set to 50, with Leg and Arm Durability set to 30. All Submission Defenses are set to 1. All Submission Offenses are set to be maxed out for anyone with a submission finisher, 80 for a submission signature. Stamina was set to 80+ for anyone with a submission finisher.

(3) People with submission finishers (in my case, Rusev, Charlotte, Asuka, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch) get the submission move as both finisher slots AND as one of the signature slots. The second signature slot gets some sort of non-submission move that does NOT conflict with the submission move (Natural Selection, as an example, for Charlotte).

(4) The movesets are modified to "set up the move":
(a) For all characters, the Holds and Limb-Targeting moves are all set to breaking point submissions of some sort on the body part in question.
(b) For head, body, and leg submissions, strikes are set up to target the specific part in all but at most one option (i.e. Asuka has at most one non-head strike in her strikes)
(c) For the head or body submission folks (Asuka and Rusev), their grapples are set up so to target the specific part in all but at most one option.
(d) For leg and arm submission folks, grapples are set to target the appropriate body part half of the time.
(e) Grounded, corner, and rope grapples all target the appropriate body part as appropriate/possible.

(5) Stamina Recovery is set to 18 from the left; Stamina cost is set to 5 from the left.

(6) Top-tier wrestlers and anyone with a Submission Finisher are set to a Resiliency Lvl 3. Everyone else is limited to Resiliency Level 2.

Put together, there does become something of a "working of the body part", and the wrestler ends up playing the game of "and she's slapped the Figure Eight on AGAIN!". You're never going to see the tap on the first or even the second attempt at the finisher, depending on whether or not it was used as a signature or as a finisher. However, because of the Resiliency, the character will never go down after the first finisher either. At that point, the standard "race to the first finisher" becomes "race to the first sig move/finisher AFTER the first finisher", and at that point, the match has lasted long enough to POTENTIALLY get a tap.

I say "potentially", because there is always the possibility of the sig move getting the win. This is a feature, not a bug, for me - I don't mind seeing Asuka win with a Buzzsaw kick or Charlotte with Natural Selection. However, there is still a chance of seeing a tap out. In my best-scenarios in Universe thus far, I've seen Becky Lynch fail to make Athena tap in a regular match, but she did inflict a minor arm injury that did lead to Athena tapping at a PPV. I've also seen the standard Rusev win with the Accolade, and Asuka win with an STF after failing to put someone away with the Rear Naked Choke.

Can anyone give some thoughts? This is working decently well, but it is a LOT, and I'm sure some of it isn't needed.

[bcruise]

The only thing I've done is lowered everyone's Power/Technical submission defense to 1 and I'm seeing some tap outs within reasonable times. Some coming much sooner than they probably should. I just did a sub match with Rock '03 and Austin, and Austin tapped in 10 minutes to a second Rock Sharpshooter (one of his signatures). With the same attribute change I also had a Divas sub match go 20 minutes with Naomi finally tapping to the PTO. So there's quite a bit of variety in the results on this one change.The way I see it, you can get away with sub defense at 1 because the four durability ratings, combined with the dominant's offense submission ratings, are enough to dictate when a tap on the particular body part should occur. The submission defense rating on top of that is just an extra layer that's often impossible for the CPU to get past.

I actually think difficulty level might make a difference here too. Before moving to the 1/1 defense thing I had Shane McMahon (and his 65 Tech sub defense) tap to a Bret Hart Sharpshooter in about 10 minutes. The thing is though, that was on normal difficulty and not where I usually play/watch (Legend). On Legend, I really don't see tapouts unless I drop the sub defense way down (which is why I'm sitting on 1 now).

And finally, I think the whole root of this problem is due to the way the submission minigame works. A wrestler almost has to have extra stamina before starting a submission (especially a finisher sub) because they need the boost mechanic in the minigame to force the submit. I see stamina drop on both sides during the course of a submission and it's not too hard to assume that it's playing the minigame against itself when it's CPU only. When the aggressor runs out of stamina during the hold, they're very unlikely to get a tap out. It happens a lot, especially on finishers because of the initial stamina cost of starting the move.

[JAMRenaissance]

I agree wholeheartedly on stamina being the problem with the submission game. Lowering the defense to 1 was the first thing I did, but it didn't seem to get the submission nearly as well.

I'm beginning to wonder what things look like with stamina turned off. I REALLY like some of the scenarios that occur with stamina (the "Hit your finisher and you're both down" one is one of my faves), but it seems like it may be more trouble than it is worth if it messes up the submission game.

[bcruise]

Okay, there's a patch out and 2k seems to be on the same wavelength regarding stamina being the problem here -

Quote:

Stamina now regenerates during submission attempts. Balance improvements have also been made to the submission system in general. Addressed an issue where COM v. COM submission matches would not end within a reasonable time period

I'm downloading now and then will try a few CPU matches with sub finishers and see how it goes. Wish me luck!

[bcruise]

Well, after some unsuccessful attempts at getting a sub win in normal matches on Legend, I decided to drop down to Normal and put the "CPU Submission matches don't last forever anymore" part of the patch notes to the test. It passed.

Quickest submission match I've ever seen - 8 minutes 20 seconds. Bryan vs Rusev, and while Rusev didn't tap to the one Yes Lock he got put in, he did tap almost immediately to another head submission right after that. The Accolade never even got a chance to happen.

The downside to watching sub matches is that I couldn't see stamina usage (I need a manager to see it in CPU vs CPU), but it's good to see something like that finally.

Going to test it out some more and see if the drop to Normal difficulty really made all that difference, or if there's just something different about sub matches than regular ones now that makes subs easier.

Stock ratings btw, and the match was on Normal momentum. I recorded it and can post it if anyone wants to see.

Edit: WOW. Second match, same wrestlers, even shorter: 7 minutes 30 seconds. No sub finishers used - the only finisher used in the match was a Bryan OMG suicide dive. Rusev tapped to the same sub he did in the first one.

I'm about to go back to regular matches because Sub feels REALLY different from what I was seeing earlier.

[bcruise]

Okay, after a lot of trial and error I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

First off - Normal difficulty (or maybe Easy too) is absolutely required to see submission finishers actually finish IMO. I don't know what it is about Hard and Legend, but even with Power and Sub defense at 1 the CPU absolutely refuses to submit. Normal brings them back into play....IF you turn down the two defense sliders.

But what I'm seeing right now is that you don't have to turn them down all the way. 30 on both seems to be the line I can't cross and reliably have a finishing submission move actually succeed for anyone. Below that it's a mixed bag, and it does seem to scale a bit - that is, it depends on the attacker's submission offense. That means that defense ratings may still be able to play able to play a small part in making each wrestler unique. Like for example, I'd put the highest rated sub defense guys at 30 and scale everything else down from there.

Stamina doesn't really appear to be playing a part anymore now that it regens during submissions - I rarely see them run out of stamina completely mid-submissions while watching matches.

That's where I'm at right now...I still want to play around with that 30-point range a bit, but I like what I'm seeing.

Oh yeah....submission matches are indeed VERY different now - like they're on a whole different paradigm from normal matches. You'll see tap-outs on any difficulty level, no matter what the defense sliders are at. I'm actually worried that lowering the defense to fix normal matches will end up breaking those and making them last like 2 minutes, but I feel like it's a small price to pay (plus if it really does get that bad I could just temporarily edit the two involved in a sub match back to deafult ratings).

[bcruise]

Proof of this working: This was the first generated Rusev match in my Universe. It's also the fastest submission I've seen in this game that I wasn't involved in. "Rusev Crush" indeed.

It's all about the match variety for me - this was supposed to be a squash match as soon as I saw it on the card and the actors sure played their parts. If I wanted a longer, more drawn out match, I could move the momentum option to normal or slow. But for something as lopsided as this? Nah - fast is just fine.

Didn't really like that Ryder managed to lift Rusev, but I haven't done the strength weight detection edits yet so it's kind of expected.

BTW - Ryder's power submission defense on that 1-30 adjusted scale? 3. Aside from that and Tech Sub defense ratings, I've adjusted nothing else as far as ratings go.