WWE 2K17

Introduction

Welcome to this unofficial guide for WWE 2k17.

Chances are pretty good you've stumbled onto this because some system in the game is frustrating you, and you're just looking for answers. It is my hope that this guide, while maybe not the most complete or comprehensive guide, can assist you by shedding some perspective on some of this titles darker corners.

General Gameplay

Taunting

For a while now, performing taunts successfully would award you with an immediate momentum boost. That changed this year to handle people spamming taunts to gain quick access to signatures and finishers. You can perform a multitude of taunts, some contextual based on where you are in the ring.

You can assign taunts to the Left, Right, and Up directional buttons of your gamepad.

• Taunting with the Left button performs a Crowd Taunt, and performing is successfully sets you up with a momentum buff. While this buff is active, landing offensive maneuvers will boost your momentum percentage much faster than without.
• Taunting with the Right button performs an Opponent Taunt, and performing it successfully sets you up with a damage buff. With this buff active, offensive maneuvers will deliver more punch and give than without.
• Taunting with the Up button performs a Wake Up Taunt. You can use this taunt to force you opponent to gets up from the ground, instead of doing it by hand which can be potentially reversed.

You can also perform taunts in contextually sensitive locations.

By performing a taunt near a turnbuckle, you can trigger a special taunt that may involve climbing up to the middle rope and taunting the crowd, or other flavour animations. Similar can be said about being near ropes, and being on the middle or top rope.

Performing these taunts do not increase or decrease the effectiveness of the buffs, they're entirely aesthetic.

MyCareer

Championships and Ranks

The game makes a pretty large departure from 2k16's Career mode, which could see you raise up the ladder and acquire the US Championship within a short couple hours of game play. WWE 2k17 demands quite a bit more commitment before strapping gold around your waist.

Please note, that much like Rivalries System which maintains an opaque mystique to it's inner workings and to what it wants out of you, the requirements necessary to raise the ranking ladder to #1 contender-ship is also shrouded in some veil of smoke and mirrors. What I can provide you is an educated guess based on a frankly disturbing number of hours logged trying to understand the progression.

The goal and means to get there are simple enough: You choose a championship to pursue, you start off at #10, and through a series of actions, raise up to #1, demand and a championship match, win the match and thus the title, go on to defend the title for a while before either losing the title or dropping it by your own accord to pursue something else.

Multiple Championships

WWE 2k17 introduces this year the opportunity to each two titles simultaneously. Where in previous entries you would be forced to vacate your previous title in order to pursue something else, in 2k17 you can hold two at the same time. This does mean that if you hold two and want to pursue a third, you will have to choose which title to drop before you can pursue the new championship.

Raising the Ranks

The climb the metaphorical ladder, you need only truly worry about a single metric: Popularity.

Much like how real pro-wrestling works (for the most part, exceptions excluded) your ability to contend for championship matches depends largely on how over you are with the audience. And so everything you do leading up to that point is an exercise in becoming more of a cultural phenomenon to prove you deserve a shot.

In WWE 2k17, popularity is earned by performing various actions much in the same way you'd earn VC (Virtual Currency). How you raise the ranking ladder to number one contender-ship is due in large part to how many fans you have. But nothing is absolute, simply by having over a million fans does not a number one contender make. Rather to raise the ranks individually and prevent you from skipping entire slots in the line, 2k17 seems to care about a DOT or "Delta Over Time" metric.

This is the metric that makes understanding the system so frustrating to many people, including Xavier Woods himself. But once the progression becomes exposed, it makes a bit more sense.

The game simply doesn't want to award you rank increases and title shots by blasting through cheap match after burial match. The game is simply saying: "We need to see an average gain of (n1) popularity over the course of (n2) shows to raise to the next rank." What numbers `(n1)` and `(n2)` represent, is a mystery only the game knows under the hood.

This is why, for example when Xavier Woods is reached episode 46 of his MyCareer youtube series and only just reached Rank 4, is due in large part in putting too much of a focus on dealing with Rivalries and not enough focus on putting on excellent matches or using a more "exciting" move set.

So how do you raise the ranks as fast as possible?

• 5 Star Matches
• OMG Moments
• Memorable Moments
• Run-Ins and Backstage Brawls
• Close-call Kickouts
• Move Variety
• Using B and A rank moves
• Using different finishers
• Cutting excellent promos
• Winning promo battles

Basically anything that makes a memorable superstar in real life applies here to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Not being locked in a rivalry helps quite a bit because you will have full agency over how you're scheduled. When not in a rivalry, you can pencil yourself in to appear for up to three different positions on any given card. So make sure to schedule self promo's, a run-in or backstage brawl of some kind (but try not to get into a rivalry when doing so), and win your scheduled match with the highest rating you can get, and youll find yourself raking in popularity in droves. And in turn you will notice yourself raising in the ladder at speeds which you may find yourself able to climb to the top in just a couple short real life play sessions.

Triggering a Championship Match

You don't actually have to be in the number one contender-ship slot to earn a championship match. You need only be in the top 3 before you can confidently cut a promo to demand a title match. Simply put the ladder ranking just means how often the option to demand a title match appears in promos and backstage interviews with Renee Young, and the chance that doing so will trigger a championship storyline with the current champion. It's been denoted by the public at large that you shouldn't anticipate triggering a championship storyline until you're in the top 3 at least, though some have reported being in the 4th slot and triggering it.

Cutting Self Promos will call upon The Authority or the champion himself to initiate the storyline.

Interviews backstage with Renee Young can instigate the champion to attack you and start the program.

Calling the champion out into a Rivalry via a call-out or run-in can also work, but doesn't always yield championship opportunities before the rivalry blows off. So be aware of that possibility.

However it is accomplished, you will be automatically locked into a rivalry with the champion.

As a note: you do NOT need to win the rivalry, you only need to win the title match to earn your chosen gold.

Rivalries

By and large one of the most frustrating features of 2k17 is its new Rivalry system, which relies on gathering units by performing actions during a Rivalry in a Tug-O-War style point system governed by points called "RP" or "Rivalry Points".

Starting a Rivalry

The first step to starting a rivalry is to simply choose someone to pick on for a while until they get bothered enough to start bothering you back. There's a few different approaches, and all work well enough; some more than others.

1. Call Out Promo
   This one is probably the most effective. However it's still not a guarantee. Depending on how much you suck at enticing your potential rival to step out of the Gorilla Position and take you on in a battle of wits, they may simply just not come out in the first place, or you get through the promo and you didn't impress them enough to spark anything.
   Awkwardly you don't have to win or lose the promo, you just have to do "ok", and that'll typically be enough to start a rivalry.
   If you have enabled yourself with Skills in the way of attacking mid-promo, use it liberally. I've never had this fail on me.
2. Run-in: Entrance
   Attacking your potential rival from behind while they do their entrance, is an age old trick of Pro Wrestling to showcase explosive heat up front. Run in, and pummel your potential rival until the ref calls it off. Do be careful however, as by getting too close to the ring can accidentally start an actual impromptu match, and for some reason that outcome has not once yielded a new rivalry as a result.
3. Run-in: Mid-Match
   At some point during your new targets match, you'll just automatically come down to the ring to act as a one-off "manager" to whoever your target rival is facing. You get to cheer your new ally, and boo your foe, you'll also be allowed to distract the ref, break up pins, or just take full control and take matters into your own hands. This method is probably the most fun, because you're allowed to do pretty much anything, just make sure to watch your "ejection" meter, once that's reached it's limit you'll be kicked out, and you can only hope a rivalry sparks from what you accomplished.
4. Run-in: Post Match Interview
   Simply put, this is a backstage brawl to knock out the target having an interview. The victory result is easy to attain, but yields spotty results on if a new rivalry is sparked or not.

Working With Your Rival

Ok hotshot, the game has informed you that your target has reached their lowest point with you, and you are now in a bonafide rivalry program with them. There are some changes to watch out for here.

1. You are no longer in control of anything.
   Before you were in a rivalry, you could choose when in the card to cut a promo, who to run in on, and basically make yourself available for up to three slots on the card per show, which does wonders for your popularity score.
   However, once in a rivalry you no longer have any control over your booking. You are no longer allowed to cut promos unless the game schedules you for it. You are no longer able to run-in or anyone, even to support your tag team partner so be prepared to watch your relationship with them change throughout the course of the rivalry and not having any ability to do anything about it.
2. The game dictates how long the Rivalry plays out
   In previous games in the 2k series, a rivalry would always blow off at the upcoming PPV. In 2k17, a single rivalry can last between a week to multiple months.
3. The game decides which cutscenes to play and which promos to cut

These are some pretty drastic changes to how MyCareer outside of a rivalry plays out. But the simple way to describe it is as such: Each rivalry kicks off a canned story mode. Which story that ends up being is the games decision, and the game decides how to go about that story based on a number of hidden factors. They're also vital, as one of the storylines happens to be your title shot.

Earning Rival Points

If I had to wager a guess, this is the very part of the guide that you're most interested in.

Unfortunately there's a reason why information about this topic is so sparse: The game is in no way transparent about how it dole's out Rivalry Points, and neither has 2k released any information about the algorithms crunching numbers under the hood. As a consequence, we have an entire community filled with people who have come up with only unconfirmed theories over how to consistently win rivalries. The sad part is: I don't have anything concrete to share with you here. I can only share what's worked for me in the past.

1. Play Heel
   MyCareer is simply not much fun in Babyface mode. To be a true babyface means arbitrarily restricting yourself from various ways of winning rivalries.
2. When the game (frustratingly often) doesn't pit you up against your rival, get your match to a three star minimum and end the match as quickly as possible.
   By the time you get to three stars, it's obvious nothing else is going to happen. And unfortunately putting on a five star match with other people than your rival has an interesting consequence of sometimes throwing your rival extra points and giving you nothing.
   I theorise that this is the games way of interpreting that you don't value your rival enough.
3. For the love of all things holy DO NOT BREAK OUT after you beat a Non-Rival opponent
   For much the same reason as number 2, breaking out and beating your downed opponent with all the mercy of an enraged gorilla, I think the game takes that as a hint that you dont care about your rivalry and will sometimes arbitrarily sway extra points their way.
4. Always put on a five star with your Rival
   The game will not punish you for putting on one of the greatest matches of all time with your rival, when the game finally decides to pit you two up against eachother. worst case scenario: no one is awarded anything
5. Do the Authority Challenges
   For some reason, I always seem to rack in the rivalry points if I do as the authority tell me to do when facing non-rival opponents.
6. You do NOT always need to win the matches to win the rivalry.
   This is probably one of the more surprising and weird things. In fact, the game will use The Authority to outright tell you to lose a few times to your opponent.
   This however does not mean you have to eat a clean pin.
   I've found that when the game asks me to outright lose against my opponent, I take that to mean I'm going to put on a five star match, and then just walk out to a countout or smoke them over the head with a chair.
7. Believe it or not: The game seems to value balance. Make your opponent look like a threat.
   Much like in real pro wrestling, it takes two to tango, and it takes the whole team to create the right mood. How much would you believe in a rivalry between James Ellseworth and Braun Strowman? And just like in real life, you need to make your opponent look strong and a threat to you.
   What I mean by this is: If all you're doing is squashing your rival in every match: you will lose the rivalry.
   It is my theory that Rivalry points have nothing to do with win/loss/brutality, and everything to do with who, by the end of the blow off match, the "audience" would be on the side of. If you're squashing the hell out of someone, the audience is going to side with the underdog. See real life example: James Ellseworth.
8. Sometimes, you just have to accept the game doesn't understand you.
   For real.
   Sometimes, youll feel like you've just lost or won your rivalry for no explainable reason. And that's the thing that's puzzled the WWE 2k community since October 2016. Just what IS this system doing under the hood? Sadly, we'll never know.