3 Things that Hold back the WWE Series

[the King Lives]

A friend posted this in response to someone that said that NXT was the main reason that wwegames are held back so i figured i'd post it.  It's a long read but it's a good one.  Enjoy!

 

1) Legacy code

I don't think I need to go into detail on what bugs from WWE '12 are still in this game. They got worse with '13, and a lot of them can be found still.

It's not a brand new engine built from scratch. I can prove it with one video -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IMwcVmWRxk -- Pay attention to Batista's finishers. In 2K15, if you could somehow get your opponent on top of the announce table, you could press LB/L1 to get up on top of the announce table and break it with a normal grapple move, which was the same way announce table spots were performed on last-gen before the OMG Ability restrictions were put in place.

If the engine was truly built from scratch, then that coding -- the ability to get onto the table by pressing LB/L1, regardless of it being a glitched situation or not -- and the animation that broke the table wouldn't have even been programmed into the game.


2) Lack of playtesting/QA (or the inability to do anything about the issues?)

I wasn't on the forums back for the 1 count glitch in '13, but I've heard many times about how the CM and developers basically said that players were lying. It's something that should have been noticed upon the first playtest.

WWE games has NEVER playtested the custom content enough -- or if they did, the issues that were found were either something that was ignored, or something that couldn't be fixed. Universe hardly ever froze in WWE '12, yet the more customization options that were added, the more problems arose. Don't get me wrong, I WANT... scratch that, I NEED those customization options. But most of those same issues carried over into 2k14 -- and judging from the last-gen forum, they're still there.

Now they are getting somewhat better about it, but the fact that this -- https://forums.2k.com/showthread.php...he-Bugs-Issues -- thread even exists tells me that they're still relying more on us for the glitches than their own team. What's also sad is that most people gave up reporting issues because they feel doing so won't accomplish much.

Unfortunately, their solution seems to be to remove things that have issues, rather than fixing those issues. Story Designer, several glitched Universe cutscenes... The other day I came to the realization that they probably removed Tag Team Elimination Chamber matches because they couldn't figure out how to get the AI to stop breaking up their own team's pinfalls.

Yes, I know there are infinite issues that could arise when one person does something in a game, while another person could do the exact same thing yet get no glitches.

I'm talking about the issues that are impossible NOT to notice. If you start the game and go to Universe, you can't play a Universe match in a DLC arena unless you edit and re-save that show's details. So they create content for us to buy and use, but they don't test it in all the modes? That's just bad playtesting, or rushing out content before even testing it. The Future Stars DLC broke Universe for 90% of the people here. Now if they truly had absolutely no idea that this happened until after the pack went live, then again, that's bad playtesting, or pure lack of it. 2k16 released without the option to create title matches in Universe. It was discovered within hours when people -- people who actually follow wrestling and know what they're doing in the game -- got the game early.

It's the glitches and oversights that lead to a lot of frustration on these forums, which lead to people not getting the next game. All I can say is play a HiaC Tornado Tag Team match in 2K16, and tell me if you think that matchtype was playtested or not.



3) WWE, and the fact that WWE expects an annual video game release

This is probably the most important issue here, because #1 and #2 are mainly due to this.

Let's be honest. 2K can WANT to put out the best game possible, the developers can TRY to put out the best game possible, but at the end of the day, in WWE's eyes, WWE Games are just another product that WWE makes money from.

It's no different to WWE than a DVD set, a Mattel action figure, a magazine, or a book of WWE posters. The game is expected to be on the shelves before the holiday season. People are expected to buy the game, and WWE expects to make money on their investment. As long as it's on the shelves on time and meets their projected sales estimation, little else matters.

And this is nothing new. Even back in the NES/SNES days, WWF games weren't very good. WrestleMania and WrestleMania Challenge were better than Tag Team Wrestling and M.U.S.C.L.E. That's about all you can say about them. The WWF saw video games as another way to make money off of their trademarks, and not much has changed.

Now I enjoyed 2K15 a lot more than most people. But I would've enjoyed it a lot more if 2K was able to delay the game a few more months, as it's likely they could've finished more of it. It's possible that CAA and CAD wouldn't have been omitted. It's possible their team could've playtested the matchtypes and modes to see what was wrong, and it's possible that the roster would have expanded. I'm sure the people at 2K would've loved an extra 3-4 months to develop 2K15. Instead, it was rushed, and what do we have moving forward? A "foundation" that was rushed. It's a decent foundation regardless, but imagine how much better it could have been had 2K not had to adhere to WWE's expected release schedule.

I mean hell, some people are going to be expecting a brand split in their game this year -- and it's possible they could have one, if WWE had given 2K proper notice. But WWE couldn't even get their new logo to 2K in time two years ago...

The series likely won't ever reach the level that some of us want, or see the mass improvement many of us want to see unless the developers get extra time -- and that isn't ever going to happen, because at the end of the day, WWE's annual sales report > the quality of an annual wrestling video game.

/novel

[jbl328]

In other words, there is no hope. Rest In Peace

[the King Lives]

In other words, there is no hope. Rest In Peace

i wouldn't go that far. there is hope. but alot of it is out of 2k's hands because of wwe constantly wanting a game out every year. which means only 18 months of dev time. that said, I did look at the 2k15 community feedback project and noticed that alot of the stuff that was suggested did make it's way into 2k16 not only the my career stuff but some universe and alot of gameplay stuff so there's the hope that they just do it bit by bit. hopefully by 2k19 we can revisit this thread and see if they got a bit better.

don't get me wrong though, 2k16 is the best game to have come out, it's just the modes and multi-man matches that need the most work.

[4 Life]

Just the glitchiness ruins things for me. Let's use the Call of Duty games as an example - the games are released, and they're glitchy as hell, which still baffles me and there really should be some sort of authority similar to Trading Standards applied to video games. However, at least they then keep a close eye on what the community are saying and then fix stuff rather quickly. There seems to be a relative lack of that going on with 2K, I suppose where they're focusing on the next game as soon as they release one.

Also, when the heck are we gonna see a WCW Showcase mode!?

[cloudropis]

Half the problems these games have could be fixed with proper QA testing, it's really maddening

[the King Lives]

Just the glitchiness ruins things for me. Let's use the Call of Duty games as an example - the games are released, and they're glitchy as hell, which still baffles me and there really should be some sort of authority similar to Trading Standards applied to video games. However, at least they then keep a close eye on what the community are saying and then fix stuff rather quickly. There seems to be a relative lack of that going on with 2K, I suppose where they're focusing on the next game as soon as they release one.

Also, when the heck are we gonna see a WCW Showcase mode!?

yeah i agree. like he said there are still glitches from wwe13. but i will also say though that all glitches aside, 2k16 was the most fun experience i had in a wrestling game since maybe idk 2010 and before that SVR07.

yeah i'd love to see a wcw showcase but with all the idiots on caws.ws and 2k forums going "oh i hate showcase mode. remove it and focus on my career" if 2k keeps listening to those people not only will we never see a wcw showcase, but our legends content will go up in smoke. You see what happened after 2k15.  People complained about story collection in 2k15's universe and what happens? 2k removes it. People complained about the ground spears to thq (mostly online people) and thq removed that and any other spammable move in the name of online players. so yeah. and this is one reason why i wish they'd just give online players their own game lol

Half the problems these games have could be fixed with proper QA testing, it's really maddening

yeah truly. like with the 1 count bug in wwe13. there was no reason that shouldn't have been picked up not only in QA testing but that was also the year they (thq) did that playtest with all those youtubers and of course none of those people reported it, probably cause they were too busy getting free tickets to wwe events and merchandise to care. lol

That patriot lock reversal animation that glitches and has the person that applies it mid air after the move is over has to be annoying as hell. and i didn't know at first but i tried doing the 6 pack challenge from smackdown last week in an ec match and oh my goodnees i had to just change the match it was nothing but a glitchfest i could go on but it seems we're on the same page lol

[tekken57]

I really think that if the dev team weren't pressured into producing a game every year, the game would be a lot better. Coming from a development environment myself, I can tell you that any project with too short development time always doesn't deliver on all the key functionalities or delivers the functionality with bugs due to lack of time to do QA.

It seems like the dev team try to develop new functionality during the course of the year but don't seem certain as to what can be completed in time for release. This is the reason why virtually no information about the game is released until very late into the development cycle.

Increasing the time for development of the game would certainly fix many of these issues, however in if this is not possible, in a real development situation, additional development teams / resources are assigned to the project to ensure that it is completed in time.

I also think the reason why a lot of the legacy code still exists in the game is because 2k is still producing a game for last gen, albeit simple roster updates.

This is probably the first year in which I won't buy the game on as many platforms. I'm going to skip buying it for the ps4 and 360 and only buy it for the pc because of the modding possibilities. The single player modes have lost their appeal to me years ago as the showcase mode is incredibly stale by now. Reliving the past was good for a few games but I really think they should take the approach of creating unique storylines in the game.

[the King Lives]

I really think that if the dev team weren't pressured into producing a game every year, the game would be a lot better. Coming from a development environment myself, I can tell you that any project with too short development time always doesn't deliver on all the key functionalities or delivers the functionality with bugs due to lack of time to do QA.

It seems like the dev team try to develop new functionality during the course of the year but don't seem certain as to what can be completed in time for release. This is the reason why virtually no information about the game is released until very late into the development cycle.

Increasing the time for development of the game would certainly fix many of these issues, however in if this is not possible, in a real development situation, additional development teams / resources are assigned to the project to ensure that it is completed in time.

I also think the reason why a lot of the legacy code still exists in the game is because 2k is still producing a game for last gen, albeit simple roster updates.

This is probably the first year in which I won't buy the game on as many platforms. I'm going to skip buying it for the ps4 and 360 and only buy it for the pc because of the modding possibilities. The single player modes have lost their appeal to me years ago as the showcase mode is incredibly stale by now. Reliving the past was good for a few games but I really think they should take the approach of creating unique storylines in the game.

i don't know. it doesn't help that they really aren't wrestling fans. as far as i know, only the yukes team, and bryan williams are wrestling fans.  I know i blame alot on 2k but i have to also put alot on the now dead THQ. because from SVR11 - 2K14 (i still own all of them) when they kept adding stuff on top of old code (i'm looking at you universe mode and you exhibition) it just broke more than it was supposed to fix.  The Glitching in the crowd had been going on since 09 or 2010 i believe. then they removed all those moves that look way better than the moves we have now.

yeah i know the engine that went from the SD series to the 2k14 series was Yukes' series.  I asked Marcus and Ledesma at different times why they don't just create a brand new engine. their answer was always vague in the sense that it would take about 3 years of dev time to develop a new engine from scratch and they simply didn't have enough people to work on a new engine while putting out a yearly game. so yeah that yearly thing is part of the problem.  another thing that was asked back in the time of wwe12 was why don't they just get rid of Yukes. and he said they couldn't cause yukes owned the WWE12 engine. so that's why we probably were in a deadlock for so long.

 

but right now i see two things that's gonna happen as far as universe goes.  Either they remove the whole thing and put in their own equivelant, or they remove it and just say "you have my career play with that"

i'm hoping i'm wrong though and maybe they do care about the consumer base but their QA is horrible. although i gave them a pass last year cause they had to interrupt their QA phase to "erase hogan"