Hacking movesets idea (done on PS2, could be used on 360 aswell)

[Nike The Bike]

I have never really like the grapples of the Smackdown games 100% ever since they added them to HCTP. It worked in SVR2006 since you could use a grapple animation that was a grapple punch and the WWE is like 75% punches anyway so that was kind of ok for me.

The grapple animations in the game today however CAN be hacked but there are no more alternative animations than those already there (that I know of).

That made me come up with an idea that I think would make the gameplay more realistic, BUT every wrestler would not have as many moves in his moveset (something that personally doesn't bother me since many moves are just fillers anyway in the default movesets).

[b]This is how I thought I'd hack the movesets:[/b]
1. The rear waist lock grapple (down) cannot be changed, that will freeze the game when grappling from behind so I will leave that one as is.
2. Collar & Elbow grapple (up) will be left as is or changed to an alternative grapple animation if it fits the wrestler so we still have 4 grappling first moves to fill here.
3. Headlock grapple (left) will have ONE move instead of the grapple animation.
4. Armwringer grapple (right) will have ONE move instead of the grapple animation.
5. Strong irish whip (hold irish whip) will have a move instead of the strong animation (and characters with this hack will get this skill).
6. Strong irish whip with direction (hold irish whip) will have a move instead of the strong animation (and characters with this hack will get this skill).
7. Irish whip without a direction will have a move instead of the animation (and characters with this hack will get this skill).

This would mean we get 9 quick front grapples, the regular 4 plus right & left grapple moves plus strong irish whip and irish whip with no direction.
In addition to this we have 2 quick favourites, a possible total of 11 front moves without having to grapple first.
Additionaly we have 4 grapple moves (grapple up) making a total of 13 standing front moves without the favourites.

Today, we have 16 front moves if we don't count submission or grapple strikes (in my opinion for too many characters those slots are worthless). If we count it all we have 22 slots today.

So 16 (or 22) down to 13 more realistic looking moves...

In my opinion in a moveset of over 20 moves many of the moves for many characters are just fillers so I'm interested in trying the idea to see how it makes the "AI" behave in matches.

Another interesting thing with this would be to make the grapple actually make sense, if you understand me. For example if you set the up grapple to a headlock animation, the four moves there would be moves that would actually follow a headlock in a match. A headlock takeover, an irish whip... Stuff like that.

Anyone find this idea interesting or is it more important to just have many move slots for you?

[qcawlity]

I do this all the time

In the older games, when the ground grapple moves "slap head and raise" and "undertaker raise and knee" transitioned into their correlated grapple tie-up animation positions, I would remove all grapple tie-up animation positions in favor of ONE grapple moves. It makes the overall transitions in the game occur smoothly instead of tying up from the beginning to end in a match. But by inserting grapple tie-ups like headlock/wrist-lock grapples, into the strong grapple sub-moves following the ground pick-up tie-ups, i could create a more chain based wrestling style where a character could go from a "raise and knee" [opens 3 moves including grapple animation] into a wrist-lock grapple [opens another 3 moves into grapple animation] into a headlock grapple [opens another...etc.] into a neckbreaker or suplex. Of course reversals would be possible in any of the transitions so it doesn't leave the opponent defenseless. When I hacked '09, it had a couple of hidden tie-up grapples not readily available in-game but '10 has none as far as I found.

Looking at your idea, it increases the amount of "quick" grapple moves at the cost of strong moves but I think it works on an individual basis. A guy like Hogan could be given only quick grapples in up, left, and right tie-up positions whereas an individual like Bret might be given a left and right quick grapple and an up tie-up which also contains a tie-up as one of the four strong grapples, thus increasing his moves and technical transition ability, and at the same time, gives him an advantage into moving from guessing his attack position to his next attack position. I feel it often times evens the playing field with smaller guys having more technical ring psychology guessing games to their repertoire and bigger guys having more instant powerful moves but with less ability to trap a small guy into a repetitive punishment cycle. Of course, guys like Brock, who are very technically sound and powerful, become monsters with this set-up.

Another thing is for high flyers, you can also add springboard moves into certain regular move positions to increase their ability to get around the ring real quick. The only problem is they will springboard off the rope closest to them so a bit of precision is needed in maneuvering them.

As for setting strong irish whip or irish whip grapples into a move, I believe it can't be changed. I believe it is similar to pinning where that can't be substituted for a move. I do recall an irish whip position in the corner or something that can be substituted for a move, but I'm pretty sure the standing irish whip positions including the strong whip will remain unchanged after changing them, even though the move id is apparent and editable in the moveset when hacking.

Funny thing, back in the day on the PS2 when I was playing online, I was accused of cheating by someone who spammed moves and had finishers as regular grapples because I had changed the flow of my wrestlers to make them more natural

[Nike The Bike]

Man, those were some real nice ideas. This might get fun...

About the grappling system in general...

I like the idea of groggy moves. Wrestlers are more groggy when they are more tired so this would make for a more realistic setup with bigger moves being groggy moves. However I REALLY don't like quick grapples being tie-up moves unless they fix the animations.

IMO I think they should have 10 normal moves and 10 groggy moves (with a setup close to the one we have today) where it simply was five moves with the right stick (including click), five others with right stick + R1. Groggy grapples would work the same way but with different moves. An easy simple setup that would allow for many moves. Easy to explain for beginners aswell, I find many non-wrestling game fans trying the game have a hard time grasping how grapples work their first few plays (and might get thrown off just because of this).

The best solution however would be to go back to using the face buttons + direction. That way you could have five different moves for each button you could free up. Adding the combination of R1 + button would give 10 moves per button. You could even have more if you also allowed that diagonal directions would also get moves. Finding ways to add more moves is simple but I think the grapple system should be simplified and the grapple animations removed for a groggy system for big moves instead.

[qcawlity]

Kind of like the SmackDown SYM system?

[Nike The Bike]

Hehe, you got it. I'm an old SYM freak. But with more moves.

[MinistryDeadman95]

Ok, I read but I couldn't really understand. Can someone explain in a shorter and simpler way?