WWE 2K19 Sliders: Guide for a realistic experience

WWE 2K games can be fairly easy for seasoned players when they take on the AI, especially if you do so as one of the better superstars like Roman Reigns or Brock Lesnar. In order to make the game more challenging and more realistic you should head to the options menu and tinker with the settings and sliders. Finding the right balance can take some time, but we have done the hard work for you and found the best way to set up WWE 2K19 for the most enjoyable and realistic matches possible.

Gameplay

Under Options -> Gameplay you can find the general difficulty setting. This is set to 'Normal' by default, which is the second of four options. If you are a seasoned player of WWE 2K games, then you should bump this up to 'Hard' at the very least. Otherwise it is too easy to overwhelm the AI in singles matches and utterly dominate them. Now you may want to do this in order to farm VC, but if you want a realistic and testing experience, then you need to increase it. Also within the Gameplay settings you can flip the submission mini-game from the RS battle to a button-tapping war.

Game Balancing

Also within Options is the 'Game Balancing' section, where the in-game sliders can be found. The first section addresses things like AI reversals, run-ins, and special move strength.

Reversals are king in WWE 2K19, but if you simply up the AI reversal rate you'll end up finding it impossible to finish off a match. To get the most realistic sliders here you should move the AI strike and AI grapple reversal rates up, while lowering the finisher and foreign object reversals. After all, how many times in a WWE match do people really reverse or counter a finisher? Maybe once a match at big shows, but almost never in a Raw or SmackDown bout.

Also within the 'Balancing 1' sliders are settings for referee down time, special move strength, and foreign object strength. As any regular player knows, when hit, referees have a tendency to stay down for far too long, meaning you can miss a pin or submission that would normally end the match. While that can be a fun aspect of WWE shows, in 2K19 it's simply a frustration that you can do without.

One of the biggest frustrations for WWE 2K19 is the amount of mid match run-ins you can encounter in play matches. If you want to avoid that, then you should simply pull all those sliders as low as possible.

Another frustration can be the need to hit 3 or 4 finishers to polish off even a weak superstar in a regular match. You should up the strength of special moves, as well as foreign objects so that those rare chair shots and table breaks really make an impact.

The 'Balancing 2' section deals with your own reversal ability as well as the stamina cost and recovery. These should all be set lower than the AI to make for a bigger challenge and more realistic match when you start your MyPLAYER journey.

When it comes to stamina, WWE 2K19 can be very harsh. Simply laying in a few stomps can destroy a whole stamina bar, making matches more about maintaining stamina than going for a 5-star, instant-classic match. To allow yourself the chance to truly be a Seth Rollins/Dean Ambrose style workhorse you have to lower the stamina cost and increase recovery rate.

Finally, we have the squash match rate, which is part of how difficult it is to beat the AI. While our VC guide says put the squash match rate up to 100, for the most realistic matches in WWE 2K19 you should put it down so that matches are a bit tougher.