United Kingdom
 

Researcher: archibalduk

At this stage, the EIHL and EPL players have their Technical Ability ratings, Potentials and Templates entered (amongst other things). A fair proportion of the NIHL-1 has been provisionally rated, but I'll be re-rating this league as the rosters have changed substantially since I carried out the provisional ratings and there's a lot of new players without ratings. Hopefully once this is done we will see the NIHL-1 playable in game.

At the moment, the British teams and players don't seem to be performing all that realistically. My guess is that it is because the players are lacking any real ratings at this stage (E.g. Telford quite frequently finish towards the top and Guildford frequently finish towards the bottom). I know the EIHL and EPL aren't the only leagues to suffer from this in game.


What Needs Testing at the Moment?
My primary concern is the cross-over in ratings between the EIHL and EPL. Also, are the EIHL ratings correct in relation to leagues of similar levels?

Things that could be tested:
* How do good and poor EPL players perform in the EIHL when signed by EIHL teams?
* How do good and poor EIHL players perform in the EPL when signed by EPL teams?
* How do the weak/poor AHL players perform in the EIHL when signed by EIHL teams?
* How do mid-level and weaker ECHL players perform in the EIHL when signed by the EIHL?
* How do players from the Danish and Norwegian leagues perform in the EIHL when signed by the EIHL?


Most Important Features Missing from the Leagues?
In my view, there are two really key things missing which greatly affect the league's realism (ignoring complex features which couldn't feasibly make it into version 1 - such as cup tournaments):

1) The 2 week notice system used by all levels of league. At present, the UK leagues are using the standard transfer system. In reality, teams can release players by giving 2 weeks' notice (equally, a player can leave with 2 weeks' notice) without having to pay any contractual compensation. Teams only sign players as free agents (the transfer system isn't used).

2) The import rule. At present, we have the no foreigner rule. This isn't too far off, but I'd like to see an additional setting for this rule which counts players without a primary UK nationality as foreigners (even if they have a UK second nationality). This is probably a decent compromise considering that we'd never realistically see an IIHF card system in game.


Scoring Levels
Hopefully the correct league scoring levels will be added to the game in time for the first beta. But in case they're not, I've listed below the correct scoring levels. To set these you must enable the Commissioner Mode when starting your game. Then select the EIHL from the League Menu and click on League Settings.

From the League Settings Screen, you will need to enter the figures listed below. After you have done this, click on Save Changes (bottom right corner). Then click on drop-down menu towards the top of the screen to select the EPL, enter the correct settings and then click on Save Changes. You'll need to do this before you start simming any games.

EIHL
ES Goals/Game: 4.48
PP Goals/Game: 1.70
SH Goals/Game: 0.25

EPIHL
ES Goals/Game: 4.76
PP Goals/Game: 1.80
SH Goals/Game: 0.27

* Note that the EPIHL PP and SH scoring levels are just my estimates (I think I should be able to compile 100% accurate levels for these later), but it gives you the correct overall scoring level settings for the league.

Enjoy! :)

I've given the EIHL a little go today and the things which strike me (apart from those that you have outlined) are as follows:

All EIHL players have the same wage of 1k.

It is possible to sign any EIHL player from another team simply by offering a contract.

The majority of free players that I signed accepted 1k (I couldn't increase or decrease this amount) this includes ex NHLers.

Free agents list takes a while to populate and often crashes the game.

Free agents show no attribute ratings (prefer an option to mask these attributes if scouting is to be used to also be used to reveal them)

Players on EIHL rosters are generally on 1 or max 2 year contracts in real life. Currently a lot of players are showing as being on 4 year deals. 10 year contracts can be offered and are happily accepted.

No 'out of game' history for EIHL players.

No indication of what penalties are given for during the match day or on the match report.

Hopefully the game will be much improved over the coming months but at the moment the EIHL doesn't really work as a playable league option.

Archi, sorry if I reply for you while you're not at the computer

This happens because non-NHL contracts are random in both salary and length

This will be fixed as we continue the research job. You're welcome to offer your services, if you're interested.

The difficulty with the UK leagues is that contract details are kept secret except for contract length (as are contract details for virtually all Euro leagues). Additionally some players, such as many of the non-import Slough Jets IIRC, pay to play rather than have a salary per se. So it's going to be difficult to replicate the UK contract system in game - particularly the additional benefits EIHL teams offer such as university sponsorship, free rent, etc. So the best we can do is make a best guess (similarly with regards to the team finances) and try to ensure that the richer clubs (such as Nottingham and Sheffield) generally have the higher contracts.

At present, contract details have not been set in the UK leagues (non-NHL contracts are all 100% random in length, salary and conditions). This is because the Editor doesn't allow me to enter just the contract length - a salary has to be entered for each year. I suggested a while back to the devs that the contract length setting should be independent of the salary details. Hopefully this is something that can be implemented sooner rather than later so that I can get the contract lengths input.

As for the salaries, these are auto-generated by the game. Previously the salaries were way too high (around about NHL level) and so I dropped the league finance settings a bit. I'm not sure why it has dropped that low. Once we're allowed to update the league finances settings again, I'll take a look.

You'll need to report that as a bug via the crashes forum: FHM - Beta Bug Reports - OOTP Developments Forums

This is not UK specific. You'll need to post that in the beta forum as a suggestion/annoyance: FHM - Public Beta Test - OOTP Developments Forums

Please see my first comment in this post.

We haven't entered player career histories yet. It's the lowest priority (rating players and keeping rosters and teams up to date are our priorities).

This is not UK specific. You'll need to post that in the beta forum as a suggestion/annoyance (but keep in mind that this is a beta and it's probably something that'll be added in due course): FHM - Public Beta Test - OOTP Developments Forums


EDIT: Thanks Alessandro! Seems we both responded at the same time. :)

EHM did an ok job with the Elite League and EPL salaries.. can we not just follow theirs? It's a start atleast until somebody could unearth some better information..

As for the perks on salaries in the UK like Uni course, cars, rent paid ect.. are you aiming to include these into the game or just pointing out so people know how difficult getting it right is?

I'm just pointing out that it's a case of setting things to a level that appears reasonable as compared to the rest of the FHM leagues. We'll never get it to reflect real life.

That would be cool, but I'd imagine it's waaay too much work lol.

To make the EIHL and indeed other Euro leagues a playable option contracts should generally be set to 1 or 2 years maximum.

As a regular player of EHM a few years ago, one of the biggest enjoyments was building a side each off-season as in real life.

I would be happy to help with the research. I have been watching UK hockey for around 13 years now so I would feel confident enough to help out in anyway I can. Feel free to contact me directly craig_s96@hotmail.com

I will report the bugs in the appropriate places thanks archibalduk

In response to the final point about salaries.

As Garethw87 pointed out EHM did a decent enough job of this, I think the 'top' players at that time were on about 40k per year and downwards as seen appropriate but it's been a long time since I played.

To be honest I don't think it would be too difficult to find someone who knows the innter workings within the EIHL to get some kind of estimate level between a top earner and a low level Brit for example and make estimates inbetween.

As for adding 'extras' into a contract, I don't feel it a priority but is something that could be looked into such as bonus for being selected in the all star team or top scorer etc, this could also include a bonus of a car/education etc.

It could be abstracted, in the sense of just making some players slightly more likely to sign if you add those clauses, and adding a certain amount of money to your non-salary expenses if you add them.

Malte mentioned a short while ago that the contract lengths can now be entered independent of the salaries in the Editor. So I'll get the EIHL contracts entered this weekend (and EPL if I have time). Seeing as it is hoped that the DB will be released weekly, hopefully we'll have proper contract lengths in game next week.

I don't know if it's the right place for that, but Michael Will, of the Braehead Clan in the EIHL, is set as 15'10'' and 86 lbs :S ;)

Archi, regarding Elite league salaries. Cardiff Devils GM recently said in an interview that the team needs an extra 200 or so fans each game to support a £6,000 per week wage budget

All the player heights and weights are entered for metric but in imperial like the previous poster mentioned. i.e. 15'3", 86 lbs instead of 153 cm, 86 kg.

Yeah this is the right place. The Editor document stated that we could use either imperial or metric, but it turns out this is wrong. So players in various Euro leagues have the wrong imperial heights and weights. The heights have all been fixed for this weekend's database. I'm not sure how the devs plan to fix the weights en masse. But rest assured we're aware of it.

As I understand it, the heights and weights are only cosmetic at the moment. :)

That seems to support my estimates. It's difficult to find details of the current salary cap, but people in the know about the financial side of the EIHL have suggested it's approx £7,000 - £7,300 per week. So that's the equivalent of £364,000 - £379,600 per annum. That is of course based on a 52 week year whereas I believe most/all hockey players are not paid during parts of the off-season.

It was "common knowledge" that when Stevie Lyle was at Basingstoke (when they were still in the EIHL in 2007) that he was earning about £850 - £900 per week. So that's about £46,800 per annum.

Apparently the top British players (i.e. those on the top two lines at the richer clubs) earn about £1,000+ per week. So that's £50,000+ per annum. The imports in fact earn less (but they get the various other benefits we've mentioned before).

Additional things we need to take into account are:

* The various extras that players get (e.g. rent and tuition fees). Tuition fees for UK students are now about £9,000 per year depending on the university - it's normally even higher for foreigners (I remember in 2002 foreign students at my uni were paying nearly £20,000 per annum compared to about the £3,000 I was paying). Depending on the size of the player's family (and whether they come to live in the UK from North America, etc), rent could be a fair bit - particularly seeing as most teams are in a city centre (certainly the richer teams are). So this probably brings the imports up to the same sort of salary as the top British players if you were to put a monetary value on these sorts of benefits (at the richer clubs at least).

* The richer clubs (e.g. Nottingham, Sheffield, etc) have a reputation for having salary bills above the salary cap. The cap is never enforced by the EIHL as far as I'm aware.

* There is a huge divergence in the salaries offered by different teams because there is a huge divergence in wealth.

So this is why I'm thinking we should initially be set the maximum salary at about £60,000 per annum and we see how that looks in game. How does that match up with the French maximum salary?

DISCLAIMER: All of the above is based on hearsay from others (either having read online or having spoken to people). The league and teams keep all of this stuff private and so it's difficult to know what's right and what's wrong.

With Cardiff having the same sized rink as Manchester I'd suspect they aren't paying as much as Nottingham, Sheffield or Belfast anyway! As far as I'm aware that is what Stevie Lyle was earning yes!

I'd agree that £60,000 per annum would be a fair number. The EIHL manages to get some very good imports over these days, and they won't be coming for free. Eliteprospects.com - Ladislav Benysek < him for example. And yes the EIHL wage cap is never enforced :p

The other things to think or are the coperate sponsors that pay the players wages. Maybe not so in the EIHL but it seems to be common in the EPL and below. I seen it quoted on the Telford Tigers website about a player that recently left. Tony Hand at Manchester was earning £1,000 per week last season... again according to 'people who knew' but him being the top player in the league and the Head Coach £500 per week for each role is about right in the EPL for a big name guy.

Thanks for confirming my thoughts. Much appreciated. :)

That ties in quite well with what I was suggesting to Jeff - that we should be aiming for a maximum salary of £30,000 pa for the EPL. The EPL is always going to be a difficult one to get right in the game due to the huge variation of salary (from £30k pa all the way down to pay to play) in addition to the corporate sponsorship you mention (I wasn't aware of that - learned something new!). I think for the sake of playability in game we should be aiming to ensure that the EPL offers the same maximum salary in game as it does in real life (if nothing else, to ensure that in game, older EIHL players and weaker imports are willing to sign).

The same goes with the NIHL - we need something that enables teams to fill their two import slots.

I've always wondered how do NIHL teams manage to sign import players! I'd imagine alot might be students again just looking for anywhere to play while they study? But as you say making it work on FHM might be interesting :p

I've always wondered this too. I don't think many of them are students. As I understand it (and my knowledge on the finances of this league is practically zero) most players pay to play and/or get expenses. In fact just last week my local team (Invicta Dynamos) released two players for not taking their commitments seriously enough, with the head coach blaming the low expenses allowance and players' work commitments:

However the head coach of Solent & Gosport stated in an interview last October that the top NIHL-1 South teams have wage bills of £2,500 per month. For a full 52 week year that's £130,000 (although I'd expect players would only be paid during the 28 week or so regular season). My guess is that the money goes on just the top players of the team (and the weaker/junior players probably just get their expenses). Invicta is one of the teams understood as paying players wages. Considering it seems they're not paying the likes of Callum Best and Joe Bliss (two of their better players - the two who are referred to in the quote above), I wonder who does actually receive any form of salary.


Following the most recent beta, the situation is mildly better (Telford are no longer finishing towards the top of the table - but they're still too strong by some way). I wonder perhaps if a goalie bug which existed prior to the public beta was having any effect. Nonetheless, the EPL in particular is too unrealistic at the moment. I think maybe I've been too generous in rating the players in the weaker teams. Manchester seem to be grossly over-performing which seems a little odd because I remember when rating them that the Guildford and Basingstoke players were generally rated on a par with Manchester. It looks like Manchester starts and/or signs players the game creates (and these players seem very strong - one finished top scorer in season #1). The Manchester roster is very small in real life (only 8 forwards IIRC) so it seems the game fills the roster out at the beginning of the game.

I'm going to take a closer look and adjust things this weekend (including some parts of the EIHL).

Interesting info, I didn't realise this. That's a decent amount for such a low-level team, wonder where they get it from?

The NIHL looks like it might end up being a fun league once it's finished!

Has anyone noticed that most of the players are only 80lbs and 15 foot tall?

Yeah we have. The heights have been fixed already. I'm not how/when the weights will be fixed, but it's on the devs' radar.

Also I have one of my players out injured so I fill his space in but yet whenever I want to progress to the next day it is coming up with the 'You have open spots in your lineup' message but I don't

This isn't related to the UK data. You'll need to post it in the beta bugs forum. :)

Does anybody have average attendance data for the EPL?

The best I've been able to find is 2010 data, but it seems somewhat out of date now (I know Manchester seem to get around about 1,100 - 1,400 on average these days). I've calculated Guildford's for this season, but that's about as far as I've got.

I'm not going to promise to post an update every week, but here's what'll be in next Wednesday's DB update from a UK perspective:

- The past week's EIHL and EPL transactions added;
- Aggression & Faceoff attributes added for the EPL and EIHL (the Faceoff attributes for 99% of EIHL players are already in the DB);
- TAs adjusted for players on a number of EPL rosters;
- Some TAs slightly adjusted for the Fife Flyers;
- Average attendance data added for the EPL (these are already present for the EIHL). EPL attendance data is based on 2010 data at the moment (except for Guildford which is right up to date). I'm going to see if I can get more up to date data for the EPL - but at least we have something provisional set.

There won't be so much progress in the DB for the next couple of weeks because I'll be re-rating the NIHL-1 (I use a spreadsheet to organise and draft this first). However, I will be doing some more tweaking of the EIHL and EPL.

That would be a tough find haha! Could you post the numbers from 2010? I'm interested to see them. I've found one match report with an attendance listed. Slough Jets with 670 and Basinstoke had 1,502 at a recent game.

Here you go: Hockeyarenas.net

The most recent EIHL figures they have are very similar to figures I've seen listed elsewhere and so that site seems to be reasonably reliable.

I'm surprised by the 670 for Slough. The Hangar is tiny. Whenever I've been to see Manchester play there, I don't think the crowd has been more than 400 or 500 at the most.

P.s. Did you hear about Slough's Adam Greener?! http://thehockeyhouse.net/2012-world...-drug-charges/

Thanks, didn't realise they were on there! EHM did a good job with attendances I think, could always use them for guidance too? Although its even more out of date!

The news about Greener is pretty crazy, he does think he's some thug though :laugh:

Have you read the news about Dundee's arena? http://www.hockeywide.co.uk/uk-elite-league.html

I didn't think EHM did a particularly good job with attendances. Although some EIHL ones were fine, I seem to recall the EPL ones in particular being somewhat out. It was a real pain to try and correct them in the DB because the game wouldn't correctly follow what you entered into the DB. So it was a task of trial and error in trying to increase/decrease your figure in the DB to try and get a decent average in game.

EHM's averages will be based on 2006 data. I think it's best to use the 2010 data I listed above as it'll be more up to date. In any event, I can compile data from match reports for several of the teams. If I see a general trend of increased attendances then I'll increase the averages for those teams I don't have data for by a similar percentage. I was just hoping somebody may have known of a site where it was nicely laid out rather than me having to start counting attendances! :D

P.s. Regarding Dundee - I think their rink will be okay this season. Sounds like the council are willing to write off the debt. It'll be interesting to see what the long term future of the rink will be and whether this will affect the viability of the team. It would be difficult to imagine such a reasonably modern arena being closed down. But then stranger things have happened (E.g. HMV's administration)...

Hi,

Will the players salaries be fixed in this new update?

Rgds,

DJLM

Yes! :)

Archi the EPL budgets seem too high? I start unemployed went to Telford and I had around $300k for free agents! :drool:

I haven't set the team budgets yet. I want to get the salary ranges correct first. Last week I asked Jeff to adjust the salary ranges for the EIHL and EPL - hopefully this will feature in this week's DB update.

You won't really notice any difference in the UK with this week's DB update (other than hopefully incorporating the adjusted salary ranges). I'm in the process of updating the NIHL-1 rosters and re-rating all of the players. I don't want to give any time estimates, but it shouldn't be too long (I work on it in Excel and then copy across the numbers into the FHM Editor).

I might make some additional tweaks to a small number of players in the EIHL and EPL for next week's DB update. However, I'm very reluctant to make any further adjustments because the scoring levels are far too low at the moment. I'm hoping the devs will have time to add the correct scoring levels once they've finished stamping out the recent deluge of bugs. I don't know what effect the increased scoring levels will have on the players and teams - e.g. will this increase the gap between the best and worse players/teams? For this reason, I think it best I hold off making any further adjustments to the TAs of the EIHL and EPL players (but I'll continue adding new sets of attributes as the devs' guidance becomes available).

Hence I'm just going to continue working on getting the NIHL-1 up to date in the mean time. I don't see any real use in testing the EIHL and EPL players' and teams' performances in game until scoring (and PIM) levels are set at realistic level.

Hmm seems the Edit Post feature isn't working on the forums at the moment. I just wanted to clarify my previous post to say that there are changes in this week's DB update, it's just that you won't notice these because they involve the NIHL-1 and this is not playable yet (because I need to finish re-rating first).

Wait. When is this update?

The next DB update is this Thursday. More details on the DB update schedule is here: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ate-plans.html

Note that normally the weekly DB update will be every Wednesday. However, this week it has been pushed one day back: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-back-day.html

releasing a player
 

will this change when you want to gas a player at the moment it cost you a years wages will this change to two weeks as per the 2 week contract they have for the uk leagues,

regards

mark

I've mentioned this to the OOTP guys a couple of times, but I need to log a formal feature request with them so that it doesn't just get lost in the forums. It's on my list of things to raise in addition to the import rule and the playoff structures for the three leagues. It'll then be up to the devs what to implement and what not to implement for version 1. As I mentioned in my first post in this thread:

I don't know if I'm the only one struggling to edit posts following the server move - I'd intended to add the following to my previous post, but the Edit function won't work:

Just one further point about the two week notice system - this doesn't just affect the UK leagues. As I understand it, it is also a feature of the German leagues.

It used to be like that in Russia too. Remember Malkin? :)

thanks for that i do hope they will as if we can not trade the players you have to blow large part of the years budget to gas a player you no longer want

Absolutely. It's pretty much make or break for the UK leagues (considering all teams other than perhaps the likes of Notts / Sheff / Belfast have no money for buying out contracts or offering transfer fees - not that either of these systems are used in real life in the UK).

BTW on everyone of my saves Steelers Captain and Alternative are Stephenson (C), Sarich (A) & Legue (A)... When its actually Phillips (C), Sarich (A) & Meyers (A).

We haven't set the Leadership attributes yet. In terms of the overall Mental TA rating, all of the players you mentioned are at the top of Sheffield's roster.

Ladislav Benysek shows as Benywek when looked at on some intefaces.

Presumably this is due to the accents over his name ('Benýšek'). This is an issue with the game's user interface rather than a beta data issue. I think the devs are already aware of this.

Yes they are aware of this. I think Jeff even said that they're going to address this issue in near future.

Just for clarity and to avoid any further reports: I've reported the incorrect format for the quarter finals of the EIHL playoffs (in game it is currently a best of 3 series). Having taken a closer look, I've found quite a number of issues:

1) Qualification is incorrect (it should be the top 8 of the overall league standings).
2) Quarter final seedings are incorrect.
3) Quarter final format is incorrect (it should be a 2 game series with the scores aggregated. Also, the games should take place on the Sat and Sun after the end of the regular season).
4) Semi final seedings are incorrect.
5) The semis and final are taking place on the wrong dates (they should be on the Sat and Sun after the quarters).
6) The match reports for the semis and final note the Location as being the city of the "home" team. This should be listed as Nottingham because the games take place at the NIC.

Three notes about the EIHL standings and playoffs:

A) I haven't explained the full playoff structure to the devs because I think it is far too ambitious to expect it to be implemented into the game (I have quoted the full rules below). My recommendation is a little simpler in that we just take the top 8 from the league standings. I think this is close enough for the time being.

B) The conference standings in game are incorrect, but I can't imagine the devs having the time to spare on something that is probably unique to the EIHL. You will see in game that the conference standings are based on the full 52 games whereas in real life they're based solely on the intra-conference games. So I haven't logged this as a suggestion (I will when I find a spare 5 minutes - but as the lowest priority).

C) I have mentioned to the devs that there is now a 3rd/4th place playoff on the same day as the playoff final. I can't imagine this being something added to the game any time soon. As with (B) above, this is something unique to the EIHL. On a personal note, I'm really glad the league has added this game to the schedule. Although the teams have nothing to play for, it is really difficult to find something to kill time in Nottingham until the evening final game (there's little to do in Nottingham on a Sunday)!!! :D

================================================== =============================

One final thing: I've reported the fact that the EPIHL doesn't have any playoffs in game. I thought perhaps this had been because I hadn't posted details of the structure for the devs. However on checking, I can see I did this last year. So I've reported it as a bug. :)

I don't think they're that hard to understand the playoffs. Top two teams in each conference are the top 2 seeds and basically 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 & 4v5. Also will the Challenge Cup be implemented?