Post by Sin-N-Terrors on Mar 2, 2014 22:11:52 GMT -5
contributed by Sanford
written by: Sammy
WeBL Primer - Sammy
The original is found at www.realboxing.co.uk together with a few other WeBL documents. This primer is slightly outdated but still a useful summary of the game. The text has been re-formatted but not changed in any way.
This is intended to be a primer in how to play WEBl. It addresses mostly general concepts, rather than trying to give specific advice. By reading and understanding it, you can become a better WEBl player, which is far more valuable than simply being told how to win a particular fight.
Fighter Design
One of the first barriers to WEBL is that players don't understand how to make a sensible fighter. The place to start is with Chin and Conditioning. Chin values that are useable vary between 7-8 at the lowest levels up to maybe even 15 at the very top. Very low chins require careful handling, very high ones can be a waste of AP's. To begin with, give all your fighters 10 chin, and when you are doing better, experiment with more, or less of it. Remember that chin directly affects your ability to take punches without getting stunned, so a low chinned fighter can be stunned, knocked down, or knocked out relatively easily, whilst a high chinned one resists very well, but pays the price, as he will lack in other areas. Conditioning affects your ability to take punches without getting worn out, and also to throw a lot of punches without tiring. You can start a fighter with as little as 12, and at the top level, 19 may sometimes be useful, but 17 is a general max. Start all of your fighters with 14 for now, and adjust as you get to know the game better.
If you make all your fighters with 10 chin and 14 con, it's almost impossible to make a completely disastrous fighter.
Cut resistance should ALWAYS be set to one. You lose very few fights through cuts, and to give away 2 aps which you could use for something else is a fatal error.
Apart from height, which we will address under the different fighter types, the other stats, Strength, Agility, Speed and Knockout Punch are called the fighting stats, and they affect the type of fighter you have. Let's look at some 'recipes' for fighter types:
Slappers
Also known as sissies, and much hated throughout the game. Many managers make a lot of slappers early in their career, because they are easy to win with. A slapper has very low strength, and cannot hurt his opponent, so has to win on points. A succesful slapper may need to start with slightly more than 14 CON, because he will have to absorb a LOT of punishment. Give them 1-6 STR, probably the lower the better. You can use AGL and SPD in a couple of ways - a higher speed slapper will find it easier to win rounds, but a higher AGL slapper will be much harder to KO. I would suggest trying some with SPD pretty much equal with AGL, and some with SPD about 30% lower than AGL. Make these fighters extra light build, to maximise height for using Outside. Slappers are most effective at the higher weights.
KP Slappers
A KP slapper is much like a normal slapper, but carrying a little KP. For example, he might have 9 STR 3 KP at the lower weights, down to 3 STR 1 KP at cruiser. The reason for that KP is this - you can run out good points lead, and then throw in rounds of countering to the head as your opponent drops his DEF to try to catch up or knock you out.
Dancers
Dancers are, to use Bruces terminology, fighters where AGL is their highest stat by a significant amount. Many of the top fighters in WEBL are dancers by this definition. To make a modern WEBL dancer, you would probably want to go with STR and SPD equal, and AGL several points above. Some people prefer to use AGL 3 or so points above SPD with STR 3 or so points lower. You'll find that many people will refer to a fighter like this as a balanced fighter. These fighters can be excellent all the way to the top, but it's not always as obvious what their advantages are, compared to a slapper. Generally these fighters should be Very Heavy build. This means few AP's are used in height, and instead they are used for stats like STR and AGL, which you need to styles like Ring and Inside.
KP Dancers
Once more, just like a dancer, but carrying KP as well. Some would argue that a fighter with 12 STR 4 KP 15 SPD 18 AGL is almost a KP slugger. If you carry KP, you MUST user it, and look for stuns. If you don't, it's just AP's you could have used elsewhere.
Balanced/Agile Sluggers/Efficiency Fighters
The concept of the efficiency fighter is that he will deal out more damage than he takes. For this reason, STR, which inflicts damage, and AGL, which avoids it, are very close. Speed in these fighters can be from very low, to maximise the damage, to quite high, to enable you to keep the score close. Try fighters with STR and AGL equal, and SPD a few points lower. To make a really damage efficient fighter, make SPD 50% of STR, but expect to find him hard to manage. Many fighters who by these definitions are dancers would also be considered balanced/efficiency fighters. Again these should mostly be Very Heavy build. It's worth remembering though that an agile slugger with a very light build will be hard for opponents to scout.
Sluggers
A slugger is a fighter who wins primarily by wearing his opponent out. Old school WEBl sluggers are starting to become viable again at the moment. Make fighters with SPD and AGL approximately equal, and STR about 2 x SPD. Again, very heavy build.
Clinchers/Superclinchers
These monsters are fighters with exceedingly high strength, and very low AGL. They are known as clinchers because they must almost always use clinch as a style, to boost their agility. A clincher should be made like a slugger, but start with a base of 8 or so for AGL, then use the rest of the AP's in STR and SPD, with twice as much STR as speed. A superclincher will have only 1 or 2 points of AGL, and will be extremely short for his divisions. You'll find that if these fighters move away from clinching and try to use inside or (God forbid) allout, they will be stunned and knocked down, and probably out, by the weakest of opponents. It is not feasible to do business with 1 AGL, so you must use clinch, so that the strength advantage you will certainly have will add to your AGL.
KP Sluggers
Generally this term refers to balanced/agile sluggers with maxed KP as well. Again, they must go for plenty of stuns, or all that KP (we could be talking 7-8 points) will go to waste. There have been a few successful KP Clinchers as well.
Flashers
A flasher is a fighter who tries to knock his opponent out early, usually in the first round or two, by inflicting massive stun damage. He will have high chin, high STR, max KP, low conditioning. I can't offer much advice on how to make a good one!
Summary
In general, WEBl is dominated by damage efficiency fighters. At the lowest weights, AGL is very important, and dancers dominate. By about feather/super feather, STR and AGL should be equal, and at the highest weights, a bias towards STR is necessary, because of the large proportion of slappy fighters.
Scouting your Opponent
Once you know you have a solid fighter, the next thing is to understand what your opponents fighter is all about. It's not necessary to know his stats down to the AP, but you need to know what your advantages are, and roughly what kind of fighter he is. The easiest tools for working this out are his height, and his knockout %age. Most endurance fighters will be Very Heavy build. If your opponent is taller than you, he would need more AGL to make the same weight. If he's shorter, he would need more STR. Remember though, that a slugger made Very Light build might be slightly taller than a balanced fighter who was Very Heavy. Remember to look at his KO %age. If he's taller than you, but still scoring more Kos, maybe he's strong, but light built. If his Kos tend to come early, that suggests that he has KP.
Ways of Winning
You can win a fight in WEBl three ways, on points, by KO, or by your opponent being disqualified. The last, you cannot influence.
If you win on points, it may be because you simply threw more punches than your opponent, or it may be that you wore him out while keeping the score close, and then used the fact that your fighter was fresher to steal the last few rounds.
If you win by KO, it might be because you wore your opponent out, and then finished him, or it might be because you hit him so hard that he was KO-ed regardless of whether he was worn out or not, or it might be that he was trying so hard to catch the score up, or to knock YOU out, that he dropped his defence dangerously low, and you were able to flatten him.
There are essentially two races going on in a WEBl fight, the score battle, and the endurance battle. You MUST get an advantage in one of these areas. If you can get the edge in both, it will be very hard for your opponent to win, if he gets the edge in both, it will be very hard for you to win. You can wear down your opponents endurance by using power in your tactics, and you can win rounds by throwing a lot of punches. It is possible to mix the two as well.
The final ingredient is stuns - if your opponent stuns you, he wins the round, and vice versa. Two stuns or a knockdown wins the round 10-8, and multiple KD's win it 10-7. An opponent with KP can get stuns even when the endurance battle is going against him.
Choosing Styles
One of the favourite mistakes that new managers make is to choose a style that they like the sound of, rather than one which suits their fighter. For example, a manager might like the idea of really hurting his opponent, so he might use Inside, despite the fact that his fighter is unsuited to it.
Ring
Ring takes your agility advantage, and uses it to add more agility. So, if you HAVE an agility advantage, it will get bigger, making you harder to wear out. However, it does incur a penalty for fatigue, so your fighter will tire slightly quicker. ONLY use this tactic if you have an AGL advantage. You might use Ring for slapping and winning rounds, but it's really more suitable for endurance fights, letting you throw power punches without taking too much damage in return.
Ropes
Ropes takes your AGL advantage, and uses it to reduce your opponents AGL. It incurs a penalty to your own AGL, meaning you take slightly more damage. A fighter with a really good AGL advantage might use Ropes to make it easier to stun or knock out his opponent, or to do massive endurance damage to finish someone off. It is not a tactic that lends itself to being used round after round. You will generally get a better endurance advantage by using Ring. Ropes has the effect of maximising the damage your opponent takes, but at some cost to the damage you take. Hence you might use it to try to end the fight, or when you were no longer afraid of your opponents ability to hurt you (because he was too tired)
Clinch
Clinch uses your STR advantage, and uses it to add to your agility. It incurs a penalty to your aggression, and the more aggressive your opponent is, the less aggressive you will be using clinch. It's the preferred way to wear out a fighter with lower strength than you, but with enough strength to be able to hurt you.
Inside
Inside takes your strength advantage, and uses it to further increase your strength. A fighter might use it, a little like ropes, to try to get a knockout or stun, or to inflict massive damage on a tired opponent. Whilst inside maximises the amount of damage that a stronger fighter will do, it also causes him to take more damage, hence it is not often used for the early 'wearing out' stages of the fight. Against a slappy fighter, who is unlikely to hurt you, you might use inside from the outset.
Feint
Feint takes your speed advantage, and uses it to increase your speed. It incurs a penalty in the form of more fatigue points. This would be used by a fighter with a SPD advantage who wanted to land a few more punches. If you have a balanced fighter, and speed is your only advantage in the fight, you MUST use feint. You might use it to help you win rounds, or, since speed plays a part in damage, you might use it to give you a bit of a boost in your damage. However, STR and AGL have a lot more to do with relative damage than SPD, so if you have an advantage in one of those areas as well, you should try to use ring or clinch, and leave feint for grabbing a round or two at the end.
Outside
Outside takes your height advantage, and uses it to increase your SPD and AGL. It incurs a penalty in the form of reduced power. For this reason, it is mainly used for slapping, where since you are making no attempt to hurt your opponent, the power penalty costs you nothing.
Counter
Takes your advantage in a combination of height and SPD, and uses it to increase your AGL and also your STR a little. KP slappers/dancers are the most succesful counterpunchers, and will mostly use it to try to stun or knock down fighters who are trying hard to even up the score or to deal them damage. Counter is not often a good strat for winning endurance battles.
Allout
Allout doubles the damage you do, but quadruples the damage you take. It's the ultimate way to take out an opponent, but it carries a huge risk. It is used in the following ways: Firstly as a last ditch means to try to knock out an opponent you can't beat any other way (this carries huge risks - if you allout an opponent who is far ahead on endurance, you will not only lose but take MASSIVE ip's). Secondly, to get surprise stuns or even better a KO during the fight - if you can pick a round where your opponent is not throwing power, you can really hurt him with an allout. Thirdly, to finish off a tired opponent, who ought not to be able to hurt you anymore (this too is risky, I've lost fights where I've won 11 rounds, and got an endurance advantage, only to see myself knocked out in the 12th whilst trying to finish it with an allout).
Finally, to maximise damage against a fighter who you don't think can hurt you, a slapper. Allout is normally used to the head, to get stuns/KO's, but against a slapper you can allout the body to wear him down.
No Style
If you're not sure you have an advantage in any area, use no style. You get no bonuses, but you also get no penalties.
Choosing Sensible Outputs
Having got a decent fighter, and a good idea what style to use, you need to work out how to distribute points between Aggression, Power, Defence, and Resting. Aggression points mean you throw more punches, and adds a little to damage. Power means you do more damage, and adds a little to the number of punches thrown. Defence affects how many punches your opponent lands, and how much damage he does you. Resting points allow you to recover some lost endurance.
You have 20 points to allocate across these four areas, expressed this way:
AGG/POW/DEF with any left over going to rest. For example:
4/8/8 means 4 AGG, 8 POW, 8 DEF.
3/6/8 means 3 AGG, 6 POW, 8 DEF, with 3 points going to rest.
You can also choose a target area, body, head, cuts, or opportunistic. Going to the body increases the endurance damage you do, but reduces the punches you land, going to the head increases stun damage, but reduces the punches you land, opportunistic maximises the punches you land (your score) and cuts helps (a little) to open or aggravate cuts. They are used like this:
4/8/8 - this is opportunistic
4b/8/8 - this is targetting the body
4h/8/8 - this is targeting the head
4c/8/8 - this is targetting cuts.
You can also choose to 'cheat'. Doing this gets you 10% more stun and endurance damage, but incurs a risk of points deduction or even disqualification. To cheat:
4b/8!/8
The exclamation mark engages cheating. You can also use a conditional to do it - see in the conditionals section.
So, how do you decide how to allocate the points? Well, it depends what you want to do. I suggest that if you decide to use less than 4 POW, you always use 1. 2 or 3 POW will not inflict significant damage, or protect you from being allouted much, but they will cost you score. So, to slap, use 1 POW:
5/1/14
7/1/12
Etc. Always go opportunistic when slapping - you aren't going to wear out or stun your opponent, so get all the points you can.
To wear out your opponent, you need an efficient damage dealing strategy. This doesn't just mean using very high power, in fact, the most damage dealt for a certain level of defence is by using twice as much POW as AGG, or as near as possible. Best of all in many cases to wear someone out is 4b/8/8, which is also great in terms of inflicting a lot of damage, but taking littles. You might use 3b/6/11 to avoid being stunned by a KO slugger. Here is a table of efficient damage dealing outputs:
2/4/14
2/5/13
3/5/12
3/6/11
3/7/10
4/7/9
4/8/8
5/8/7
5/9/6
5/10/5
5/11/4
6/11/3
6/12/2
At the ends of the scale, these are rather extreme. 2/4/14 would only be used if a fighter was highly likely to knock you out, whereas 6/12/2 would would only dare use if your opponent was VERY unlikely to hurt you.
Generally, 4b/8/8 is the best for getting an endurance advantage, and you might shift to 5b/8/7, if your opponent is also doing 4b/8/8 and you want to win the round. 5b/10/5 is great for quickly wearing down an opponent who isn't hurting you much, but if you are being hit back hard, it may get you behind on endurance.
If an endurance fighter wants to win rounds and still deal as much damage as possible, he will want to switch first to opportunistic, to increase score 20% straight away. Then he will want to step up, using strats like 5/8/7, 6/8/6, 7/7/6, 8/6/6 even. Remember that the further you go, the greater your risk of being stunned. 8/8/4 works well against someone who's really running down, or against slappers, but again, be aware of the risk.
An endurance fighter facing a KP slugger may well want to go with 3b/6/11 early on, so he can wear his man down without getting KO-ed. Remember, the KP slugger may well drop his def very low to try to hurt you, meaning that even a conservative strat like that will start to get you an endurance advantage.
When going for stuns, what you do depends on the situation. A slugger/balanced fighter will probably only get a stun when his opponent is either tiring or overdoing it. To proactively stun with one of these fighters, 5h/10/5 is often best. If you think your opponent might be going to allout you (it's the 12th, and you are 3 points ahead, for example) then 4h/8/8 will mean you do the most stun damage while taking the least.
A KP dancer or slapper will once again want to use 5h/10/5 against an opponent who is merely being aggressive, or 4h/8/8 against an allouter.
Fight Plan structure
Ok, we know how to make a fighter, how to figure out what his advantage is over his opponent, how to choose a style to work with that, and what sort of outputs to use. Now we need to think about a fight plan. This is how I structure them. Here we will examine what we need to look for, and when. In the section on Conditionals, we'll look at how to check these things.
It's important to understand that I write very in depth fight plans. Many managers will look at each individual fight, look at the way their opponent will normally behave, and write quite a short fp, maybe 15 lines, for the fight. They'll look for things like, does this fighter often rest in a particular round, if he's behind late on, does he allout, and take advantage of those things. My plans are designed so that as long as I know what type of fighter an opponent is, I'll beat him almost no matter what he does. This means that once the plans are written, I can use them again and again, so it's not nearly so labour intensive. I'll just look for flaws and weaknesses and tweak the plan. Sometimes I'll write a specific plan for a particular gym. For example, there is one manager in the UKS all of whose fighters are very light build balanced guys, and who ALWAYS rests in the 5th. For this guy, I have a special plan!
Early Rounds
Here I'll be very intensive on checking. I fight is often won or lost in the first few rounds. I'll check to see how much damage my opponent is doing, whether he or I are winning the rounds, whether either of us has been stunned. For the first four rounds I will check all of these for every round. This should mean that I'm starting to get the edge in either score or endurance by the 4th/5th, hopefully both.
Remember not to go too far in pursuit of anything. If you're trying and failing to win rounds early with ever increasing aggression, this tells you something. It tells you your opponent is REALLY being aggressive, and must either be sacrificing POW or DEF to do so. You can exploit that by working his body or going for stuns instead of chasing the score in a futile way.
After the 4th, I will leave my fighter alone, in terms of checking score etc. That is to say that he'll follow the same instructions for now, and not get new ones every round.
Around the 6th round, I'll start to check whether I have an endurance advantage. If neither of us has a significant endurance advantage, then I still need to be sticking to the knitting, which usually means trying to do as much damage as possible while still keeping the score close. If I HAVE got an endurance advantage, however, I will look to act on that, either by hitting the body yet harder, to really wear him out (remember, he will now not be so able to hurt me) and by going for stuns/KO.
Around the 9th round, you need to start thinking about the endgame. Your tactics at this point will probably start to change, since you either want to be stretching out and winning the last few rounds (remember, the closer the fight is, the bigger chance that you'll get robbed) or looking for the KO. At this point I'll enter a whole new set of checks on score and endurance, and act on those based on it being the end of the fight, not the middle. I'll do this for the 11th and 12th rounds too. Earlier in the fight, you don't especially mind your opponent drawing level every other round, but at this point, things are critical. If you are a point ahead after the 10th, winning the 11th will pretty much win you the fight, but losing it will mean a bit of a last round lotter. Worse yet if you are one point ahead going into the 12th, and you lose that round. Remember to think hard about what your opponent is likely to do. If it's the 12th round, and you're 2 points ahead, he NEEDS a knock down even to make it a draw, and more to win it. Therefore he's far more likely to go for the head than to jab a lot.
One of the key things in WEBl is to try to get your opponent into what you can call a 'kill zone', and then take him out. This can include him being so tired you can knock him out easily, and him being so far behind that you can batter him pillar to post as he tries to catch up. You want to win by KO wherever possible to avoid the risk of robbery (I've won a fight by 4 rounds according to the score, only to see the judges give it to my opponent) and so you want to do all you can to force your opponent into one of these zones of opportunity, and then to make sure you spot the chance and take advantage of it.
Conditionals
Ok. We know you need to check your score, your endurance, your opponents endurance, stuns etc. But how can you do this? Here are the variables, and some conditionals.
Score
Score reflects the difference between your score and his. So, if at the end of the match, it's 115-113 in your favour, score will be 2. If you win a round 10-9, 1 point is added to score. If you lose it 10-9, 1 point is subtracted. For 10-8 it's two, for 10-7 it's three etc. So, you can do things like:
1) 4b/8/8 (ring)
3) if score < 0 then 6/8/6 (ring)
This looks at the score after 2 rounds, and if you aren't winning on points, it steps up to a higher level of attack. You can use = < > or combinations to get what you want.
There are also conditionals called roundswon and roundslost which you can use. They are incremented if you won a round by enough that it's 98% certain the judges will give it to you. However, they do not tell you when you just about shade a round, nor do they tell you, when you HAVE won a round, whether you won it 10-9, or 10-7. I seldom use them.
Your Endurance
The variables for your endurance are endurance, and endurance_percent. The first tells you exactly how many endurance points you have left. How many you start with depends on your CON - a fighter with 12 CON will have 120 to start, and one with 19 will have 190. This makes endurance a tricky variable to use, specially if you plan to share your FP between fighters. Endurance_percent by comparison tells you what percentage of your starting endurance you have. This means conditionals using this can be used for any of your fighters.
The most effective way of using endurance_percent is to get an average of how much damage per round you've taken. For Example:
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 1) then 5H/10/5 (allout)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 5b/10/5 (ring)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 6) then 5/8/7 (ring)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 9) then 5H/10/5 (ring)
These four lines check whether the average endurance you lost each round was in a particular bracket. In this case, if you lost between 1 and 3, 3 and 6, 6 and 9 or more than 9 % of your endurance per round. If you use several together like this, you ALWAYS need to have the lowest number first. Remember that WEBl will execute the last line that is true, and if endurance percentage is greater than 95, it's also greater that 90. Therefore you need to start big and gradually refine your search in this way.
You can, and should, use score and endurance conditionals together. For Example:
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 1) then 5H/10/5 (allout)
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 9) then 4b/8/8 (ring)
In each case the score is greater than one, so you are winning, but in the first case you are shipping a LOT of damage, so you need to focus on endurance, and in the second, you've taken next to none, so you can think of allouting. Likewise:
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 4b/8/8 (ring)
4) score <0 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 6/8/6 (ring)
In this case, the first line shows that you are winning, and taking a medium amount of damage. The second shows that you are taking the same level of damage, but losing. If we factor both together, you can see that the combination of how much damage you've taken and the score tells you a lot about what's happening in the fight.
Your Opponents Endurance
You can check which of three brackets your opponents endurance percentage is in using the opponent variable.
The brackets are:
Strong 66-100%
Tired 33-66%
Exhausted 0-33%
This means you can check how tired he is. For example:
If opponent = exhausted then 5h/10/5 (inside)
You can also compare their endurance with yours. What you need to do is be sensible over what you look for. If your endurance percentage is 68%, and your opponent is tired, then you know you have an advantage; however, your opponent could have 65%, meaning that your advantage would be very small. He COULD have 34%, meaning your advantage is large. If you have 75% however, you KNOW that you have an advantage worth mentioning. Combine like this:
4) if opponent = exhausted and endurance_percent > 65 then 5H/10/5 (allout)
You can use this to tell if you have an advantage, particularly if it's a big one, and if your opponent has the advantage over you.
Cheating
We saw that using an exclamation mark you can cheat at any given time. You can also put in a conditional to do it. Every time you are warned for cheating, your chance of being disqualified rises. Therefore most people only cheat if they have not been warned. You can use a line like this at the end of your plan:
1) If warnings = 0 then cheat
If you put a line at the end, but with a 1) in front of it, it will be there to kick in at any point in the fight. If you are losing badly, and taking a beating, you might actually WANT to be DQ-ed, in order to minimize your IP's. .
When the fight is won/lost
I have a series of lines that I put at the end of plans, which determine what to do if the fight is essentially all over.
1) if score < round - 13 and endurance_percent > 60 then 5H/10/5 (allout)
1) if score < round - 13 and endurance_percent < 60 then 1/1!/18 (ring)
1) if score > 15 - round and opponent = tired and endurance_percent > 70 then 4H/8/8 (ring)
1) if score > 15 - round and opponent = tired and endurance_percent < 70 then 1/1/18 (ring)
The first two of these deal with what to do if it is impossible to win on points, even if I win every round 10-9. I generally work on the basis that if my fighter is not too battered, it's worth trying an allout, but if he's tiring, it might be better to go 1/1/18 for minimum damage, and cheat, hoping to be disqualified and minimize IP's.
The other two deal in a similar way with the situation where the opponent can't win. If I'm in a position where I'll win by 3 rounds, then I either opt to go 4h/8/8, to protect against allouts, or 1/1/18, so as not to get worn down more.
Hopefully this will help you in your quest to learn WEBl. Good luck!
written by: Sammy
WeBL Primer - Sammy
The original is found at www.realboxing.co.uk together with a few other WeBL documents. This primer is slightly outdated but still a useful summary of the game. The text has been re-formatted but not changed in any way.
This is intended to be a primer in how to play WEBl. It addresses mostly general concepts, rather than trying to give specific advice. By reading and understanding it, you can become a better WEBl player, which is far more valuable than simply being told how to win a particular fight.
Fighter Design
One of the first barriers to WEBL is that players don't understand how to make a sensible fighter. The place to start is with Chin and Conditioning. Chin values that are useable vary between 7-8 at the lowest levels up to maybe even 15 at the very top. Very low chins require careful handling, very high ones can be a waste of AP's. To begin with, give all your fighters 10 chin, and when you are doing better, experiment with more, or less of it. Remember that chin directly affects your ability to take punches without getting stunned, so a low chinned fighter can be stunned, knocked down, or knocked out relatively easily, whilst a high chinned one resists very well, but pays the price, as he will lack in other areas. Conditioning affects your ability to take punches without getting worn out, and also to throw a lot of punches without tiring. You can start a fighter with as little as 12, and at the top level, 19 may sometimes be useful, but 17 is a general max. Start all of your fighters with 14 for now, and adjust as you get to know the game better.
If you make all your fighters with 10 chin and 14 con, it's almost impossible to make a completely disastrous fighter.
Cut resistance should ALWAYS be set to one. You lose very few fights through cuts, and to give away 2 aps which you could use for something else is a fatal error.
Apart from height, which we will address under the different fighter types, the other stats, Strength, Agility, Speed and Knockout Punch are called the fighting stats, and they affect the type of fighter you have. Let's look at some 'recipes' for fighter types:
Slappers
Also known as sissies, and much hated throughout the game. Many managers make a lot of slappers early in their career, because they are easy to win with. A slapper has very low strength, and cannot hurt his opponent, so has to win on points. A succesful slapper may need to start with slightly more than 14 CON, because he will have to absorb a LOT of punishment. Give them 1-6 STR, probably the lower the better. You can use AGL and SPD in a couple of ways - a higher speed slapper will find it easier to win rounds, but a higher AGL slapper will be much harder to KO. I would suggest trying some with SPD pretty much equal with AGL, and some with SPD about 30% lower than AGL. Make these fighters extra light build, to maximise height for using Outside. Slappers are most effective at the higher weights.
KP Slappers
A KP slapper is much like a normal slapper, but carrying a little KP. For example, he might have 9 STR 3 KP at the lower weights, down to 3 STR 1 KP at cruiser. The reason for that KP is this - you can run out good points lead, and then throw in rounds of countering to the head as your opponent drops his DEF to try to catch up or knock you out.
Dancers
Dancers are, to use Bruces terminology, fighters where AGL is their highest stat by a significant amount. Many of the top fighters in WEBL are dancers by this definition. To make a modern WEBL dancer, you would probably want to go with STR and SPD equal, and AGL several points above. Some people prefer to use AGL 3 or so points above SPD with STR 3 or so points lower. You'll find that many people will refer to a fighter like this as a balanced fighter. These fighters can be excellent all the way to the top, but it's not always as obvious what their advantages are, compared to a slapper. Generally these fighters should be Very Heavy build. This means few AP's are used in height, and instead they are used for stats like STR and AGL, which you need to styles like Ring and Inside.
KP Dancers
Once more, just like a dancer, but carrying KP as well. Some would argue that a fighter with 12 STR 4 KP 15 SPD 18 AGL is almost a KP slugger. If you carry KP, you MUST user it, and look for stuns. If you don't, it's just AP's you could have used elsewhere.
Balanced/Agile Sluggers/Efficiency Fighters
The concept of the efficiency fighter is that he will deal out more damage than he takes. For this reason, STR, which inflicts damage, and AGL, which avoids it, are very close. Speed in these fighters can be from very low, to maximise the damage, to quite high, to enable you to keep the score close. Try fighters with STR and AGL equal, and SPD a few points lower. To make a really damage efficient fighter, make SPD 50% of STR, but expect to find him hard to manage. Many fighters who by these definitions are dancers would also be considered balanced/efficiency fighters. Again these should mostly be Very Heavy build. It's worth remembering though that an agile slugger with a very light build will be hard for opponents to scout.
Sluggers
A slugger is a fighter who wins primarily by wearing his opponent out. Old school WEBl sluggers are starting to become viable again at the moment. Make fighters with SPD and AGL approximately equal, and STR about 2 x SPD. Again, very heavy build.
Clinchers/Superclinchers
These monsters are fighters with exceedingly high strength, and very low AGL. They are known as clinchers because they must almost always use clinch as a style, to boost their agility. A clincher should be made like a slugger, but start with a base of 8 or so for AGL, then use the rest of the AP's in STR and SPD, with twice as much STR as speed. A superclincher will have only 1 or 2 points of AGL, and will be extremely short for his divisions. You'll find that if these fighters move away from clinching and try to use inside or (God forbid) allout, they will be stunned and knocked down, and probably out, by the weakest of opponents. It is not feasible to do business with 1 AGL, so you must use clinch, so that the strength advantage you will certainly have will add to your AGL.
KP Sluggers
Generally this term refers to balanced/agile sluggers with maxed KP as well. Again, they must go for plenty of stuns, or all that KP (we could be talking 7-8 points) will go to waste. There have been a few successful KP Clinchers as well.
Flashers
A flasher is a fighter who tries to knock his opponent out early, usually in the first round or two, by inflicting massive stun damage. He will have high chin, high STR, max KP, low conditioning. I can't offer much advice on how to make a good one!
Summary
In general, WEBl is dominated by damage efficiency fighters. At the lowest weights, AGL is very important, and dancers dominate. By about feather/super feather, STR and AGL should be equal, and at the highest weights, a bias towards STR is necessary, because of the large proportion of slappy fighters.
Scouting your Opponent
Once you know you have a solid fighter, the next thing is to understand what your opponents fighter is all about. It's not necessary to know his stats down to the AP, but you need to know what your advantages are, and roughly what kind of fighter he is. The easiest tools for working this out are his height, and his knockout %age. Most endurance fighters will be Very Heavy build. If your opponent is taller than you, he would need more AGL to make the same weight. If he's shorter, he would need more STR. Remember though, that a slugger made Very Light build might be slightly taller than a balanced fighter who was Very Heavy. Remember to look at his KO %age. If he's taller than you, but still scoring more Kos, maybe he's strong, but light built. If his Kos tend to come early, that suggests that he has KP.
Ways of Winning
You can win a fight in WEBl three ways, on points, by KO, or by your opponent being disqualified. The last, you cannot influence.
If you win on points, it may be because you simply threw more punches than your opponent, or it may be that you wore him out while keeping the score close, and then used the fact that your fighter was fresher to steal the last few rounds.
If you win by KO, it might be because you wore your opponent out, and then finished him, or it might be because you hit him so hard that he was KO-ed regardless of whether he was worn out or not, or it might be that he was trying so hard to catch the score up, or to knock YOU out, that he dropped his defence dangerously low, and you were able to flatten him.
There are essentially two races going on in a WEBl fight, the score battle, and the endurance battle. You MUST get an advantage in one of these areas. If you can get the edge in both, it will be very hard for your opponent to win, if he gets the edge in both, it will be very hard for you to win. You can wear down your opponents endurance by using power in your tactics, and you can win rounds by throwing a lot of punches. It is possible to mix the two as well.
The final ingredient is stuns - if your opponent stuns you, he wins the round, and vice versa. Two stuns or a knockdown wins the round 10-8, and multiple KD's win it 10-7. An opponent with KP can get stuns even when the endurance battle is going against him.
Choosing Styles
One of the favourite mistakes that new managers make is to choose a style that they like the sound of, rather than one which suits their fighter. For example, a manager might like the idea of really hurting his opponent, so he might use Inside, despite the fact that his fighter is unsuited to it.
Ring
Ring takes your agility advantage, and uses it to add more agility. So, if you HAVE an agility advantage, it will get bigger, making you harder to wear out. However, it does incur a penalty for fatigue, so your fighter will tire slightly quicker. ONLY use this tactic if you have an AGL advantage. You might use Ring for slapping and winning rounds, but it's really more suitable for endurance fights, letting you throw power punches without taking too much damage in return.
Ropes
Ropes takes your AGL advantage, and uses it to reduce your opponents AGL. It incurs a penalty to your own AGL, meaning you take slightly more damage. A fighter with a really good AGL advantage might use Ropes to make it easier to stun or knock out his opponent, or to do massive endurance damage to finish someone off. It is not a tactic that lends itself to being used round after round. You will generally get a better endurance advantage by using Ring. Ropes has the effect of maximising the damage your opponent takes, but at some cost to the damage you take. Hence you might use it to try to end the fight, or when you were no longer afraid of your opponents ability to hurt you (because he was too tired)
Clinch
Clinch uses your STR advantage, and uses it to add to your agility. It incurs a penalty to your aggression, and the more aggressive your opponent is, the less aggressive you will be using clinch. It's the preferred way to wear out a fighter with lower strength than you, but with enough strength to be able to hurt you.
Inside
Inside takes your strength advantage, and uses it to further increase your strength. A fighter might use it, a little like ropes, to try to get a knockout or stun, or to inflict massive damage on a tired opponent. Whilst inside maximises the amount of damage that a stronger fighter will do, it also causes him to take more damage, hence it is not often used for the early 'wearing out' stages of the fight. Against a slappy fighter, who is unlikely to hurt you, you might use inside from the outset.
Feint
Feint takes your speed advantage, and uses it to increase your speed. It incurs a penalty in the form of more fatigue points. This would be used by a fighter with a SPD advantage who wanted to land a few more punches. If you have a balanced fighter, and speed is your only advantage in the fight, you MUST use feint. You might use it to help you win rounds, or, since speed plays a part in damage, you might use it to give you a bit of a boost in your damage. However, STR and AGL have a lot more to do with relative damage than SPD, so if you have an advantage in one of those areas as well, you should try to use ring or clinch, and leave feint for grabbing a round or two at the end.
Outside
Outside takes your height advantage, and uses it to increase your SPD and AGL. It incurs a penalty in the form of reduced power. For this reason, it is mainly used for slapping, where since you are making no attempt to hurt your opponent, the power penalty costs you nothing.
Counter
Takes your advantage in a combination of height and SPD, and uses it to increase your AGL and also your STR a little. KP slappers/dancers are the most succesful counterpunchers, and will mostly use it to try to stun or knock down fighters who are trying hard to even up the score or to deal them damage. Counter is not often a good strat for winning endurance battles.
Allout
Allout doubles the damage you do, but quadruples the damage you take. It's the ultimate way to take out an opponent, but it carries a huge risk. It is used in the following ways: Firstly as a last ditch means to try to knock out an opponent you can't beat any other way (this carries huge risks - if you allout an opponent who is far ahead on endurance, you will not only lose but take MASSIVE ip's). Secondly, to get surprise stuns or even better a KO during the fight - if you can pick a round where your opponent is not throwing power, you can really hurt him with an allout. Thirdly, to finish off a tired opponent, who ought not to be able to hurt you anymore (this too is risky, I've lost fights where I've won 11 rounds, and got an endurance advantage, only to see myself knocked out in the 12th whilst trying to finish it with an allout).
Finally, to maximise damage against a fighter who you don't think can hurt you, a slapper. Allout is normally used to the head, to get stuns/KO's, but against a slapper you can allout the body to wear him down.
No Style
If you're not sure you have an advantage in any area, use no style. You get no bonuses, but you also get no penalties.
Choosing Sensible Outputs
Having got a decent fighter, and a good idea what style to use, you need to work out how to distribute points between Aggression, Power, Defence, and Resting. Aggression points mean you throw more punches, and adds a little to damage. Power means you do more damage, and adds a little to the number of punches thrown. Defence affects how many punches your opponent lands, and how much damage he does you. Resting points allow you to recover some lost endurance.
You have 20 points to allocate across these four areas, expressed this way:
AGG/POW/DEF with any left over going to rest. For example:
4/8/8 means 4 AGG, 8 POW, 8 DEF.
3/6/8 means 3 AGG, 6 POW, 8 DEF, with 3 points going to rest.
You can also choose a target area, body, head, cuts, or opportunistic. Going to the body increases the endurance damage you do, but reduces the punches you land, going to the head increases stun damage, but reduces the punches you land, opportunistic maximises the punches you land (your score) and cuts helps (a little) to open or aggravate cuts. They are used like this:
4/8/8 - this is opportunistic
4b/8/8 - this is targetting the body
4h/8/8 - this is targeting the head
4c/8/8 - this is targetting cuts.
You can also choose to 'cheat'. Doing this gets you 10% more stun and endurance damage, but incurs a risk of points deduction or even disqualification. To cheat:
4b/8!/8
The exclamation mark engages cheating. You can also use a conditional to do it - see in the conditionals section.
So, how do you decide how to allocate the points? Well, it depends what you want to do. I suggest that if you decide to use less than 4 POW, you always use 1. 2 or 3 POW will not inflict significant damage, or protect you from being allouted much, but they will cost you score. So, to slap, use 1 POW:
5/1/14
7/1/12
Etc. Always go opportunistic when slapping - you aren't going to wear out or stun your opponent, so get all the points you can.
To wear out your opponent, you need an efficient damage dealing strategy. This doesn't just mean using very high power, in fact, the most damage dealt for a certain level of defence is by using twice as much POW as AGG, or as near as possible. Best of all in many cases to wear someone out is 4b/8/8, which is also great in terms of inflicting a lot of damage, but taking littles. You might use 3b/6/11 to avoid being stunned by a KO slugger. Here is a table of efficient damage dealing outputs:
2/4/14
2/5/13
3/5/12
3/6/11
3/7/10
4/7/9
4/8/8
5/8/7
5/9/6
5/10/5
5/11/4
6/11/3
6/12/2
At the ends of the scale, these are rather extreme. 2/4/14 would only be used if a fighter was highly likely to knock you out, whereas 6/12/2 would would only dare use if your opponent was VERY unlikely to hurt you.
Generally, 4b/8/8 is the best for getting an endurance advantage, and you might shift to 5b/8/7, if your opponent is also doing 4b/8/8 and you want to win the round. 5b/10/5 is great for quickly wearing down an opponent who isn't hurting you much, but if you are being hit back hard, it may get you behind on endurance.
If an endurance fighter wants to win rounds and still deal as much damage as possible, he will want to switch first to opportunistic, to increase score 20% straight away. Then he will want to step up, using strats like 5/8/7, 6/8/6, 7/7/6, 8/6/6 even. Remember that the further you go, the greater your risk of being stunned. 8/8/4 works well against someone who's really running down, or against slappers, but again, be aware of the risk.
An endurance fighter facing a KP slugger may well want to go with 3b/6/11 early on, so he can wear his man down without getting KO-ed. Remember, the KP slugger may well drop his def very low to try to hurt you, meaning that even a conservative strat like that will start to get you an endurance advantage.
When going for stuns, what you do depends on the situation. A slugger/balanced fighter will probably only get a stun when his opponent is either tiring or overdoing it. To proactively stun with one of these fighters, 5h/10/5 is often best. If you think your opponent might be going to allout you (it's the 12th, and you are 3 points ahead, for example) then 4h/8/8 will mean you do the most stun damage while taking the least.
A KP dancer or slapper will once again want to use 5h/10/5 against an opponent who is merely being aggressive, or 4h/8/8 against an allouter.
Fight Plan structure
Ok, we know how to make a fighter, how to figure out what his advantage is over his opponent, how to choose a style to work with that, and what sort of outputs to use. Now we need to think about a fight plan. This is how I structure them. Here we will examine what we need to look for, and when. In the section on Conditionals, we'll look at how to check these things.
It's important to understand that I write very in depth fight plans. Many managers will look at each individual fight, look at the way their opponent will normally behave, and write quite a short fp, maybe 15 lines, for the fight. They'll look for things like, does this fighter often rest in a particular round, if he's behind late on, does he allout, and take advantage of those things. My plans are designed so that as long as I know what type of fighter an opponent is, I'll beat him almost no matter what he does. This means that once the plans are written, I can use them again and again, so it's not nearly so labour intensive. I'll just look for flaws and weaknesses and tweak the plan. Sometimes I'll write a specific plan for a particular gym. For example, there is one manager in the UKS all of whose fighters are very light build balanced guys, and who ALWAYS rests in the 5th. For this guy, I have a special plan!
Early Rounds
Here I'll be very intensive on checking. I fight is often won or lost in the first few rounds. I'll check to see how much damage my opponent is doing, whether he or I are winning the rounds, whether either of us has been stunned. For the first four rounds I will check all of these for every round. This should mean that I'm starting to get the edge in either score or endurance by the 4th/5th, hopefully both.
Remember not to go too far in pursuit of anything. If you're trying and failing to win rounds early with ever increasing aggression, this tells you something. It tells you your opponent is REALLY being aggressive, and must either be sacrificing POW or DEF to do so. You can exploit that by working his body or going for stuns instead of chasing the score in a futile way.
After the 4th, I will leave my fighter alone, in terms of checking score etc. That is to say that he'll follow the same instructions for now, and not get new ones every round.
Around the 6th round, I'll start to check whether I have an endurance advantage. If neither of us has a significant endurance advantage, then I still need to be sticking to the knitting, which usually means trying to do as much damage as possible while still keeping the score close. If I HAVE got an endurance advantage, however, I will look to act on that, either by hitting the body yet harder, to really wear him out (remember, he will now not be so able to hurt me) and by going for stuns/KO.
Around the 9th round, you need to start thinking about the endgame. Your tactics at this point will probably start to change, since you either want to be stretching out and winning the last few rounds (remember, the closer the fight is, the bigger chance that you'll get robbed) or looking for the KO. At this point I'll enter a whole new set of checks on score and endurance, and act on those based on it being the end of the fight, not the middle. I'll do this for the 11th and 12th rounds too. Earlier in the fight, you don't especially mind your opponent drawing level every other round, but at this point, things are critical. If you are a point ahead after the 10th, winning the 11th will pretty much win you the fight, but losing it will mean a bit of a last round lotter. Worse yet if you are one point ahead going into the 12th, and you lose that round. Remember to think hard about what your opponent is likely to do. If it's the 12th round, and you're 2 points ahead, he NEEDS a knock down even to make it a draw, and more to win it. Therefore he's far more likely to go for the head than to jab a lot.
One of the key things in WEBl is to try to get your opponent into what you can call a 'kill zone', and then take him out. This can include him being so tired you can knock him out easily, and him being so far behind that you can batter him pillar to post as he tries to catch up. You want to win by KO wherever possible to avoid the risk of robbery (I've won a fight by 4 rounds according to the score, only to see the judges give it to my opponent) and so you want to do all you can to force your opponent into one of these zones of opportunity, and then to make sure you spot the chance and take advantage of it.
Conditionals
Ok. We know you need to check your score, your endurance, your opponents endurance, stuns etc. But how can you do this? Here are the variables, and some conditionals.
Score
Score reflects the difference between your score and his. So, if at the end of the match, it's 115-113 in your favour, score will be 2. If you win a round 10-9, 1 point is added to score. If you lose it 10-9, 1 point is subtracted. For 10-8 it's two, for 10-7 it's three etc. So, you can do things like:
1) 4b/8/8 (ring)
3) if score < 0 then 6/8/6 (ring)
This looks at the score after 2 rounds, and if you aren't winning on points, it steps up to a higher level of attack. You can use = < > or combinations to get what you want.
There are also conditionals called roundswon and roundslost which you can use. They are incremented if you won a round by enough that it's 98% certain the judges will give it to you. However, they do not tell you when you just about shade a round, nor do they tell you, when you HAVE won a round, whether you won it 10-9, or 10-7. I seldom use them.
Your Endurance
The variables for your endurance are endurance, and endurance_percent. The first tells you exactly how many endurance points you have left. How many you start with depends on your CON - a fighter with 12 CON will have 120 to start, and one with 19 will have 190. This makes endurance a tricky variable to use, specially if you plan to share your FP between fighters. Endurance_percent by comparison tells you what percentage of your starting endurance you have. This means conditionals using this can be used for any of your fighters.
The most effective way of using endurance_percent is to get an average of how much damage per round you've taken. For Example:
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 1) then 5H/10/5 (allout)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 5b/10/5 (ring)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 6) then 5/8/7 (ring)
4) if endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 9) then 5H/10/5 (ring)
These four lines check whether the average endurance you lost each round was in a particular bracket. In this case, if you lost between 1 and 3, 3 and 6, 6 and 9 or more than 9 % of your endurance per round. If you use several together like this, you ALWAYS need to have the lowest number first. Remember that WEBl will execute the last line that is true, and if endurance percentage is greater than 95, it's also greater that 90. Therefore you need to start big and gradually refine your search in this way.
You can, and should, use score and endurance conditionals together. For Example:
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 1) then 5H/10/5 (allout)
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 9) then 4b/8/8 (ring)
In each case the score is greater than one, so you are winning, but in the first case you are shipping a LOT of damage, so you need to focus on endurance, and in the second, you've taken next to none, so you can think of allouting. Likewise:
4) score > 1 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 4b/8/8 (ring)
4) score <0 and endurance_percent > 100 - ((round - 1) * 3) then 6/8/6 (ring)
In this case, the first line shows that you are winning, and taking a medium amount of damage. The second shows that you are taking the same level of damage, but losing. If we factor both together, you can see that the combination of how much damage you've taken and the score tells you a lot about what's happening in the fight.
Your Opponents Endurance
You can check which of three brackets your opponents endurance percentage is in using the opponent variable.
The brackets are:
Strong 66-100%
Tired 33-66%
Exhausted 0-33%
This means you can check how tired he is. For example:
If opponent = exhausted then 5h/10/5 (inside)
You can also compare their endurance with yours. What you need to do is be sensible over what you look for. If your endurance percentage is 68%, and your opponent is tired, then you know you have an advantage; however, your opponent could have 65%, meaning that your advantage would be very small. He COULD have 34%, meaning your advantage is large. If you have 75% however, you KNOW that you have an advantage worth mentioning. Combine like this:
4) if opponent = exhausted and endurance_percent > 65 then 5H/10/5 (allout)
You can use this to tell if you have an advantage, particularly if it's a big one, and if your opponent has the advantage over you.
Cheating
We saw that using an exclamation mark you can cheat at any given time. You can also put in a conditional to do it. Every time you are warned for cheating, your chance of being disqualified rises. Therefore most people only cheat if they have not been warned. You can use a line like this at the end of your plan:
1) If warnings = 0 then cheat
If you put a line at the end, but with a 1) in front of it, it will be there to kick in at any point in the fight. If you are losing badly, and taking a beating, you might actually WANT to be DQ-ed, in order to minimize your IP's. .
When the fight is won/lost
I have a series of lines that I put at the end of plans, which determine what to do if the fight is essentially all over.
1) if score < round - 13 and endurance_percent > 60 then 5H/10/5 (allout)
1) if score < round - 13 and endurance_percent < 60 then 1/1!/18 (ring)
1) if score > 15 - round and opponent = tired and endurance_percent > 70 then 4H/8/8 (ring)
1) if score > 15 - round and opponent = tired and endurance_percent < 70 then 1/1/18 (ring)
The first two of these deal with what to do if it is impossible to win on points, even if I win every round 10-9. I generally work on the basis that if my fighter is not too battered, it's worth trying an allout, but if he's tiring, it might be better to go 1/1/18 for minimum damage, and cheat, hoping to be disqualified and minimize IP's.
The other two deal in a similar way with the situation where the opponent can't win. If I'm in a position where I'll win by 3 rounds, then I either opt to go 4h/8/8, to protect against allouts, or 1/1/18, so as not to get worn down more.
Hopefully this will help you in your quest to learn WEBl. Good luck!