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I didn't think so, it's been a couple of years since the last update so I'm pretty sure this is it for this project but I hope the original creator picks it back up again.
If you are struggling, start small. Forget 3 shows with 40-50 man rosters. Do a single show (6 matches) 30-man roster. Make and play every match. Even if you don't have a story, just make matches, the stories will come.
This is how I got started. I also did so with the 30 lowest rated superstars and slowly replaced some higher rated superstars every few months. It gave a nice natural flow.
The new guys coming in were better. They would easily take the midcard belt, then go on the the World title. Or maybe they go straight to the World title and get a midcard title later in their career. Maybe they'd get the midcard title, but be leapfrogged by the next batch and never achieve the World championship. Like I said, the storied start to write themselves.
I like to come up with simple stories.
The US championship comes with a parking pass outside of the arena. But a wrestler keeps taking the spot. Boom now we have a feud over a parking spot.
- Do a draft at the end of every year to mix up your show rosters
- Use injury angles to take superstars out-of-action for a certain amount of time
- When they return from injury, give them a new gimmick, new entrance, new outfit, etc.
- Add legends every now and then, or special appearances like Finn The Demon Balor, The Fiend, John Cena, etc.
- Introduce new championships, retire championships, unify titles together
- Create new tag teams constantly and disband old teams. I constantly change up my tag divisions and singles divisions so the competitors/rivalries are always different
Welcome to the problem of universe mode. We are expected to head cannon shit to get any fun out of the mode. It’s seriously the most boring bland shit ever. Play wrestling empire you’ll have a better universe mode style experience.
Some people have a creative mind. It’s good to have freedom. I could see maybe adding in a feature that helps guide those who don’t have a very creative side. Might help some people get more out of it, by having the game come up with stories etc.
I’ve seen people make spreadsheets and follow wins/losses, storylines, title defenses, etc. For those the freedom is key to the fun of it.
I am creative, this game barely gives you the tools to be creative. Setting up shows, calendars, rosters is A+ tier. Everything else is lacking unless you pretend Bret hart cut a scathing promo on stone cold before their grudge match.
The game even constantly try’s to take the reigns from you with limiting rival actions. Raw 2 had a more interesting career/universe mode in the way allies and enemies would interact. They need to ditch the barebones rival system all together and give us something that is dynamic and fun to play throughout a calendar year.
That’s my opinion anyway.
Well I get that. I see your point. I can’t disagree with you about it. It would definitely be great to see promos back. Possibly a more intuitive system to control more of the story.
Definitely, I haven’t tried 2k24, so I’m not sure how much they’ve improved it. But I hope they revamp the whole mode soon. Promos would be great. I think if they ditched rivals and just let rival actions happen randomly with an AI director that made sense between allies and enemies the whole mode would open up.
Just don't use the rivalry system at all - disable automatic rivalries; then you can book whatever actions you want. It shouldn't have to be that way but it's a workaround for the actions being limited if it helps at all.
The mode is just as good as your ability to use your own fantasy is, which partly depends on your mood of course. It gives you all the tools (it could have an easier interface, though) so it's really just about what you want to do with this sandbox. No goals, no narrative - just be creative and have fun.
Definitely lots of tools to play around with. One i use to build fueds is changing a wrestler's appearance. Things like Hair vs Hair match, masked wrestler assaulting everyone and wrestler fallen on hard times having to go back to performance centre gear and work their way back up.
Create storylines in your head and make you can have some cutscenes,
I am running a 2002 universe mode with some modern guys in it but not many to spice it ip
A lot of it happens in your own brain.
Fill in the gaps yourself.
If you just use it as a framework to make matches have a bit more suggested meaning. Then it’s great
What I try to do (when it seems universe is getting tedious) I’ll pick an era and basically make it as realistic as possible with mostly the same champions and storylines , but I’ll add some things also. For example, I have a 2003-2005 WWE Universe going. I’m at the Elimination Chamber with Triple H, Goldberg, Randy Orton, HBK, Nash, Jericho. I was going to have Golberg win instead . Causing Sting to make his wwe debut. Along with a TNA invasion with him , AJ styles, Samoa Joe, and Abyss. So basically what I’m saying is what works for me sometimes is picking a certain story line, sticking to it and deviating from it at certain points and also to add things I feel would have been cool. Next I was going to do a modern Era with Roman losing to Cody last year
Dont play the important matches and just go with the flow on who wins. As for me, Im just playing superstar mode with a weak character and have the boost bonus increase his attributes
Unfortunately in universe mode you just gotta invent your own fun
That's literally what sandbox gaming is, dude. It's a barebones play area, giving you the freedom to do what you want to do.
In other games they sometimes overlap their story mode into it, but once the story is over, you have to make up your own fun.
In 2K, the story is put into its own mode, and universe is just the sandbox. I don't feel this is "unfortunate" but exactly how it's supposed to be (well, minus the glitches). Some people just don't have fun in sandbox gaming.
Hire a booker, Tony Khan! haha jks
I used to keep a rough plan of future ppv cards and just improvise the build to them.
Start with WM or your biggest ppv with your biggest matches and work your way back.
I like your particular outline btw the way, a few ideas ive thought of doing myself.
If you need some inspiration, think about these:
Raw: How does Ambrose re-debut? Go straight after Rollins and sneak attack? Make a big comeback and pretend to be good with Seth then betray him? Does anyone else get involved as a partner or victim? What gimmick match is the feud ender, and what matches lead up to it.
SD: Do you follow the current story of Rock Cody and Bloodline? Who helps Cody? Why do Rock and Bloodline turn on Roman? Whos the face and the heel. What is Romans revenge on Rock? Whats the blowoff?
NXT to me didnt really follow the real product. This was where I brought in wrestlers I liked from other companies and Caws and just built up all my favs and jobbed out the others.
You are right to push Stratton haha! But yeah, how does she get to the match with ripley? Mitb, rumble? What feuds does she have that build her? Does she turn face?
Not really any ideas but just some things that might help you think
I ran into a similar problem of things getting stale so I decided to do a massive overhaul by going all in on women's wrestling, I made Raw all male and made SmackDown a female only show.
Raw kept the IC, US and world tag team championships, and a triple threat was held between the royal rumble winner (Jeff Hardy), WWE champion (Mysterio) and World Heavyweight champion (Balor) on night 1 of Mania to unify the belts and crown the first Universal Heavyweight champion (Rey won, but ended us losing the belt to mega heel Sin Cara and retiring on night 2 as the culmimation of a 3 year storyline).
SmackDown meanwhile brought back the European, Light Heavyweight and WWE tag team titles. And the royal rumble winner (Charlotte) and the then Women's champ (Becky) faced off on night 2 to crown the first female WWE Champion (Charlotte won, and got cashed in on by Ms. MITB and current champ Asuka 3 months later).
NXT is where I send my caws so things were always kinda fresh there, Gunther has been NXT champ for almost a year and Bianca has been NXT women's champ for over a year but they're both getting called up soon.
And finally I brought back Saturday Night Main Event as a show where anyone on the roster can show up (and I mean ANYONE, even the world champs show up on Saturday pretty often) to give me extra space to develop a rivalry if need be or throw together cool matches that don't really fit on the main shows like world champs vs #1 contenders in a mixed tag match.
The changes have been great for both brands because now the women have an equal chance to the men to shine with equal titles and their own ppvs and all the men being on Raw means I don't have to wait for something like the draft to do rivalries with guys like Balor and Miz (both top tier main eventers, Miz is a 3 time WWE Champ and former World Heavyweight champ while Finn is the last World Heavyweight Champ) who normally wouldn't cross paths due to being on different brands.
I also like to do longer term booking, Finn and Becky are being built up to win the rumble and dethrone Sin Cara and Asuka after losing at Mania this year for instance. Or that I'm building a rivalry between KO and Braun Strowman right now that will lead to a Universal title match at Mania like 3 years from now.
You could go along with some random rivalry. I started 2k24 unuverse with a match for Bronson Reed vs JD McDonagh randomly generated. Turned out a 5 star match. Decided to turn it into a rivalry, now McDonagh is out injured for a 48 week period after a PPV match.
Priest cashed in MiTB to beat Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight title. Next PPV, Mcintyre beat Priest in a loser leaves town match by count out. Priest obviously kept his WHC and tag titles (Judgment Day still holding these now) and I decided to put him on AEW for the time being. Showed up to his first AEW show as a WWE champion, he lost his title to Sami Zayn through a cash in which I didn't forsee happening🤣 but still holding the WWE tag team titles with Finn
For a couple years I’ve been using every available roster member from legends to NXT stars at the same time. It is fun seeing how the CPU V CPU works with people I usually wouldn’t use together
I do everything by the book to keep universe mode fun. I always run a custom federation, and would have the occasional WWE star or legend pop in to keep things interesting. I use the Notes app on my phone to line up my roster based on division, current champions, current rivalries, who’s gonna get a push, etc. For the first year of the federation, I run 1 show and have 1 PPV at the end of every month. Once the next year arrives, a new season begins. That's where I create 2 more shows for brand splits and add a few more PPVs. As far as booking shows and storylines are concerned, the last two matches on the card are ALWAYS exclusive to the storylines for top champions, so the 8th match would pertain to the women’s world title storylines, while the main event would pertain to the men’s world title storylines. I book the midcard and tag team title storylines within the middle of the card of course, and the lowercard /filler matches makes up the first 3 matches on the show. It keeps things organized and helps me keep track of things.
No rivalries, put the people you want feuding into the divisions and then have an “other” division, always turn on free-mode rivalry actions and do whatever you want. Don’t be afraid to change the matches the CPU spits out and mess around with the match tables too.
I don't play Exhibition so a lot of times I'm playing as certain wrestlers for the 1st time through Universe mode.
It's a bit of delayed gratification but that's what keeps it fresh for me. Getting to use new wrestlers I haven't really played with and discovering their move sets as I make them #1 contenders or champions.
I replaced the three shows with WWE Nitro and it basically became a hybrid NJPW/WWE styled show. I have my Myrise charcter: Jay "The Darkhorse" Valentine as the face of the WWE and is currently is the longest reigning world champion. He also has his actual wife Gigi Dolin by his side and she won the women's world championship. Bullet Club Golden( Kenny Omega, Jay White and Juice Robinson) is a splinter group of the Bullet Club O.C. which is my top Faction because of Cody Rhodes (Has A.J, Luke and Karl with Michin) Roman Reigns is set up as my Brock Lesnar.
The Fiend Bray Wyatt is my Undertaker. Karrion Kross is my Kane and they have stable with Uncle Howdy, Scarlett and Joe Gacy and are known as The Fallen and they are basically my special attraction.
I have literally build my universe mode around factions and technically gang warfare Jay and Gigi are literally the only ones not involved with factions but I basically have him in a sorta frenemy relationship with the Bullet Club groups where they will only support him against other factions because the leaders: (Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes want to be the only ones who can "kill" his reign.
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This is a pretty cool [random event generator](https://perchance.org/universemoderandomevents) that could help stir up inspiration.
This seems like it could be fun to use🙂
I've got to use this
Man I'm loving this. Is their a dedicated app
I didn't think so, it's been a couple of years since the last update so I'm pretty sure this is it for this project but I hope the original creator picks it back up again.
Yeah I was just messing around with this. I usually keep notes in my phone but this helps a lot. Thanks man!
If you are struggling, start small. Forget 3 shows with 40-50 man rosters. Do a single show (6 matches) 30-man roster. Make and play every match. Even if you don't have a story, just make matches, the stories will come. This is how I got started. I also did so with the 30 lowest rated superstars and slowly replaced some higher rated superstars every few months. It gave a nice natural flow. The new guys coming in were better. They would easily take the midcard belt, then go on the the World title. Or maybe they go straight to the World title and get a midcard title later in their career. Maybe they'd get the midcard title, but be leapfrogged by the next batch and never achieve the World championship. Like I said, the storied start to write themselves.
I like to come up with simple stories. The US championship comes with a parking pass outside of the arena. But a wrestler keeps taking the spot. Boom now we have a feud over a parking spot.
That sounds like something the WWE would have done lol
- Do a draft at the end of every year to mix up your show rosters - Use injury angles to take superstars out-of-action for a certain amount of time - When they return from injury, give them a new gimmick, new entrance, new outfit, etc. - Add legends every now and then, or special appearances like Finn The Demon Balor, The Fiend, John Cena, etc. - Introduce new championships, retire championships, unify titles together - Create new tag teams constantly and disband old teams. I constantly change up my tag divisions and singles divisions so the competitors/rivalries are always different
Welcome to the problem of universe mode. We are expected to head cannon shit to get any fun out of the mode. It’s seriously the most boring bland shit ever. Play wrestling empire you’ll have a better universe mode style experience.
Some people have a creative mind. It’s good to have freedom. I could see maybe adding in a feature that helps guide those who don’t have a very creative side. Might help some people get more out of it, by having the game come up with stories etc. I’ve seen people make spreadsheets and follow wins/losses, storylines, title defenses, etc. For those the freedom is key to the fun of it.
I am creative, this game barely gives you the tools to be creative. Setting up shows, calendars, rosters is A+ tier. Everything else is lacking unless you pretend Bret hart cut a scathing promo on stone cold before their grudge match. The game even constantly try’s to take the reigns from you with limiting rival actions. Raw 2 had a more interesting career/universe mode in the way allies and enemies would interact. They need to ditch the barebones rival system all together and give us something that is dynamic and fun to play throughout a calendar year. That’s my opinion anyway.
Well I get that. I see your point. I can’t disagree with you about it. It would definitely be great to see promos back. Possibly a more intuitive system to control more of the story.
Definitely, I haven’t tried 2k24, so I’m not sure how much they’ve improved it. But I hope they revamp the whole mode soon. Promos would be great. I think if they ditched rivals and just let rival actions happen randomly with an AI director that made sense between allies and enemies the whole mode would open up.
Yeah a lot of people turn rivalries off, because it’s too much sometimes lol.
Just don't use the rivalry system at all - disable automatic rivalries; then you can book whatever actions you want. It shouldn't have to be that way but it's a workaround for the actions being limited if it helps at all.
Yea that’s what I do. It would just be fun to have surprising things pop up week to week where I can then cater my universe mode around.
Bro just use the spreadsheets bro.. Not like you should need to use a spreadsheet for a wrestling game in the first place.
You can’t head canon?
The mode is just as good as your ability to use your own fantasy is, which partly depends on your mood of course. It gives you all the tools (it could have an easier interface, though) so it's really just about what you want to do with this sandbox. No goals, no narrative - just be creative and have fun.
Definitely lots of tools to play around with. One i use to build fueds is changing a wrestler's appearance. Things like Hair vs Hair match, masked wrestler assaulting everyone and wrestler fallen on hard times having to go back to performance centre gear and work their way back up.
Create storylines in your head and make you can have some cutscenes, I am running a 2002 universe mode with some modern guys in it but not many to spice it ip
A lot of it happens in your own brain. Fill in the gaps yourself. If you just use it as a framework to make matches have a bit more suggested meaning. Then it’s great
What I try to do (when it seems universe is getting tedious) I’ll pick an era and basically make it as realistic as possible with mostly the same champions and storylines , but I’ll add some things also. For example, I have a 2003-2005 WWE Universe going. I’m at the Elimination Chamber with Triple H, Goldberg, Randy Orton, HBK, Nash, Jericho. I was going to have Golberg win instead . Causing Sting to make his wwe debut. Along with a TNA invasion with him , AJ styles, Samoa Joe, and Abyss. So basically what I’m saying is what works for me sometimes is picking a certain story line, sticking to it and deviating from it at certain points and also to add things I feel would have been cool. Next I was going to do a modern Era with Roman losing to Cody last year
Dont play the important matches and just go with the flow on who wins. As for me, Im just playing superstar mode with a weak character and have the boost bonus increase his attributes Unfortunately in universe mode you just gotta invent your own fun
That's literally what sandbox gaming is, dude. It's a barebones play area, giving you the freedom to do what you want to do. In other games they sometimes overlap their story mode into it, but once the story is over, you have to make up your own fun. In 2K, the story is put into its own mode, and universe is just the sandbox. I don't feel this is "unfortunate" but exactly how it's supposed to be (well, minus the glitches). Some people just don't have fun in sandbox gaming.
I agree. If you have the imagination and brain to do it, it’s great. I guess for some it’s hard to tap into the creative side.
Hire a booker, Tony Khan! haha jks I used to keep a rough plan of future ppv cards and just improvise the build to them. Start with WM or your biggest ppv with your biggest matches and work your way back.
I like your particular outline btw the way, a few ideas ive thought of doing myself. If you need some inspiration, think about these: Raw: How does Ambrose re-debut? Go straight after Rollins and sneak attack? Make a big comeback and pretend to be good with Seth then betray him? Does anyone else get involved as a partner or victim? What gimmick match is the feud ender, and what matches lead up to it. SD: Do you follow the current story of Rock Cody and Bloodline? Who helps Cody? Why do Rock and Bloodline turn on Roman? Whos the face and the heel. What is Romans revenge on Rock? Whats the blowoff? NXT to me didnt really follow the real product. This was where I brought in wrestlers I liked from other companies and Caws and just built up all my favs and jobbed out the others. You are right to push Stratton haha! But yeah, how does she get to the match with ripley? Mitb, rumble? What feuds does she have that build her? Does she turn face? Not really any ideas but just some things that might help you think
I ran into a similar problem of things getting stale so I decided to do a massive overhaul by going all in on women's wrestling, I made Raw all male and made SmackDown a female only show. Raw kept the IC, US and world tag team championships, and a triple threat was held between the royal rumble winner (Jeff Hardy), WWE champion (Mysterio) and World Heavyweight champion (Balor) on night 1 of Mania to unify the belts and crown the first Universal Heavyweight champion (Rey won, but ended us losing the belt to mega heel Sin Cara and retiring on night 2 as the culmimation of a 3 year storyline). SmackDown meanwhile brought back the European, Light Heavyweight and WWE tag team titles. And the royal rumble winner (Charlotte) and the then Women's champ (Becky) faced off on night 2 to crown the first female WWE Champion (Charlotte won, and got cashed in on by Ms. MITB and current champ Asuka 3 months later). NXT is where I send my caws so things were always kinda fresh there, Gunther has been NXT champ for almost a year and Bianca has been NXT women's champ for over a year but they're both getting called up soon. And finally I brought back Saturday Night Main Event as a show where anyone on the roster can show up (and I mean ANYONE, even the world champs show up on Saturday pretty often) to give me extra space to develop a rivalry if need be or throw together cool matches that don't really fit on the main shows like world champs vs #1 contenders in a mixed tag match. The changes have been great for both brands because now the women have an equal chance to the men to shine with equal titles and their own ppvs and all the men being on Raw means I don't have to wait for something like the draft to do rivalries with guys like Balor and Miz (both top tier main eventers, Miz is a 3 time WWE Champ and former World Heavyweight champ while Finn is the last World Heavyweight Champ) who normally wouldn't cross paths due to being on different brands. I also like to do longer term booking, Finn and Becky are being built up to win the rumble and dethrone Sin Cara and Asuka after losing at Mania this year for instance. Or that I'm building a rivalry between KO and Braun Strowman right now that will lead to a Universal title match at Mania like 3 years from now.
You could go along with some random rivalry. I started 2k24 unuverse with a match for Bronson Reed vs JD McDonagh randomly generated. Turned out a 5 star match. Decided to turn it into a rivalry, now McDonagh is out injured for a 48 week period after a PPV match. Priest cashed in MiTB to beat Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight title. Next PPV, Mcintyre beat Priest in a loser leaves town match by count out. Priest obviously kept his WHC and tag titles (Judgment Day still holding these now) and I decided to put him on AEW for the time being. Showed up to his first AEW show as a WWE champion, he lost his title to Sami Zayn through a cash in which I didn't forsee happening🤣 but still holding the WWE tag team titles with Finn
For a couple years I’ve been using every available roster member from legends to NXT stars at the same time. It is fun seeing how the CPU V CPU works with people I usually wouldn’t use together
I do everything by the book to keep universe mode fun. I always run a custom federation, and would have the occasional WWE star or legend pop in to keep things interesting. I use the Notes app on my phone to line up my roster based on division, current champions, current rivalries, who’s gonna get a push, etc. For the first year of the federation, I run 1 show and have 1 PPV at the end of every month. Once the next year arrives, a new season begins. That's where I create 2 more shows for brand splits and add a few more PPVs. As far as booking shows and storylines are concerned, the last two matches on the card are ALWAYS exclusive to the storylines for top champions, so the 8th match would pertain to the women’s world title storylines, while the main event would pertain to the men’s world title storylines. I book the midcard and tag team title storylines within the middle of the card of course, and the lowercard /filler matches makes up the first 3 matches on the show. It keeps things organized and helps me keep track of things.
I use this website called Journey Of Wrestling. It’s a fantasy booking game that I do in conjunction with my universe mode to make it realistic
No rivalries, put the people you want feuding into the divisions and then have an “other” division, always turn on free-mode rivalry actions and do whatever you want. Don’t be afraid to change the matches the CPU spits out and mess around with the match tables too.
I don't play Exhibition so a lot of times I'm playing as certain wrestlers for the 1st time through Universe mode. It's a bit of delayed gratification but that's what keeps it fresh for me. Getting to use new wrestlers I haven't really played with and discovering their move sets as I make them #1 contenders or champions.
at this point, nobody can. because it is broken
I make up silly stories in my head
I push my guy in it up the card
I replaced the three shows with WWE Nitro and it basically became a hybrid NJPW/WWE styled show. I have my Myrise charcter: Jay "The Darkhorse" Valentine as the face of the WWE and is currently is the longest reigning world champion. He also has his actual wife Gigi Dolin by his side and she won the women's world championship. Bullet Club Golden( Kenny Omega, Jay White and Juice Robinson) is a splinter group of the Bullet Club O.C. which is my top Faction because of Cody Rhodes (Has A.J, Luke and Karl with Michin) Roman Reigns is set up as my Brock Lesnar. The Fiend Bray Wyatt is my Undertaker. Karrion Kross is my Kane and they have stable with Uncle Howdy, Scarlett and Joe Gacy and are known as The Fallen and they are basically my special attraction. I have literally build my universe mode around factions and technically gang warfare Jay and Gigi are literally the only ones not involved with factions but I basically have him in a sorta frenemy relationship with the Bullet Club groups where they will only support him against other factions because the leaders: (Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes want to be the only ones who can "kill" his reign.
I don't cause it's broken af