OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - FHM 3

bialanoc · 04-10-2016, 05:22 PM

A lot of what I'm interested in has been covered well already, but I'll pile on for a few things:

-It's really essential to incorporate trades into online leagues that feature a mix of user and CPU teams. Right now these leagues are missing an utterly core function of team-building, which also detracts from the enjoyability of the game during the regular season since rosters are static aside from waiver claims for mediocre players (to say nothing of trade deadline day, a day so prominent in hockey that the fan community puts their lives virtually on hold for a day to follow along). If the dev team can identify the issues that are making it difficult to implement, I'm sure the folks on this forum would be eager to think through possibilities to resolve the issue and get this into the game.

-The aging mechanism could use some refinement. In my online league we saw Jonthan Toews playing for the Rockford IceHogs by about the age of 31, which really detracts from the sense of realism and immersion. I understand the observations made on the forum about when the average NHL player peaks, but perhaps the decline in skill could be far less precipitous in the early post-peak years and then really ratchet up exponentially by 32 or 33.

-As others have observed, the draft classes skew too heavily by quantity and quality toward European and Russian players right now. Increasing the number of Canadians and Americans, as well as the number of Canadians and Americans that rate at the "top player" or "outstanding player" potential level, would be great in terms of making scouting more intuitive and reflective of real-world dynamics.

-I very much agree that additional storylines would liven up the Inbox, or perhaps a "news" box that could be added to the GM home screen. I suspect some of these could be easy to implement - the "Milestones" screen already exists, so a story could be generated when one of those milestones is met. A similar story could generate when a player passes 30 goals, 100 points, or whatever number makes sense for the given league (perhaps it could be editable by the commissioner). Team ownership also changes periodically, so that could generate a story when the team owner field updates, much like the GM hirings and firings. The team finances screen is also a bit opaque right now, perhaps these numbers could periodically generate a "franchise value ranking" similar to the annual Forbes rankings so we could see the variance by market. The list of players taken in the first round of a past draft could be merged with those players' current teams and stats to generate a report, as a means of periodically checking in on how those picks panned out. (note that this last one won't be very entertaining unless further variability and unpredictability is injected into the draft process)

-Rivalries are important enough in hockey that NBC Sports at least attempts to market a night of programming around them. The "Edit Team" screen should offer an option to identify 1 or 2 core rivals for each team, so that the game generates a preview when Pittsburgh plays Philadelphia, or Calgary plays Edmonton, with a synopsis of how the teams compare and how their star players are matching up. It could even slightly ratchet up the penalties assessed during those games, or affect the mood of the players when they beat a hated rival. It would also be very cool to have dynamic rivalries that come and go, perhaps based on multiple playoff meetings in a given period of time (e.g. Chicago-Vancouver, or one team injuring the star player of the other (e.g. Pittsburgh-Boston). After a specified interval of time where the rivalry conditions aren't reinvigorated by re-triggering any of these conditions, games between these teams would revert to normal non-rivalry treatment.

-When it comes to free agency, money is a big thing, but it isn't the only thing. If players are considering other factors in their decision it should be more evident, or new factors should be added. For example, a player from British Columbia could place a premium on an offer from the Canucks, but also be intrigued by offers from a team in Seattle or Calgary. Perhaps some star players would prefer a big media market (maybe tie it to the Greed and Ambition ratings as a crude means of relating it to endorsement potential). Others might prefer to play in a smaller market where they can live more anonymously. Maybe a player with high loyalty, toward the middle or end of his career, would be interested in returning for a second tour of duty with a team he played for in the past that treated him well.

-Being able to import a team roster from another save file would be great. As an example of the value of this, it might be fun to be able to create a custom league of the 7 Canadian teams, plus a relocated eighth team playing the role of the Nordiques, using all the real rosters for those teams as an all-Canada pro league. That's a lot of data entry to make that happen right now, there's got to be a better way!

04-10-2016, 05:22 PM	#86
bialanoc Bat Boy Join Date: Sep 2015 Posts: 19	A lot of what I'm interested in has been covered well already, but I'll pile on for a few things: -It's really essential to incorporate trades into online leagues that feature a mix of user and CPU teams. Right now these leagues are missing an utterly core function of team-building, which also detracts from the enjoyability of the game during the regular season since rosters are static aside from waiver claims for mediocre players (to say nothing of trade deadline day, a day so prominent in hockey that the fan community puts their lives virtually on hold for a day to follow along). If the dev team can identify the issues that are making it difficult to implement, I'm sure the folks on this forum would be eager to think through possibilities to resolve the issue and get this into the game. -The aging mechanism could use some refinement. In my online league we saw Jonthan Toews playing for the Rockford IceHogs by about the age of 31, which really detracts from the sense of realism and immersion. I understand the observations made on the forum about when the average NHL player peaks, but perhaps the decline in skill could be far less precipitous in the early post-peak years and then really ratchet up exponentially by 32 or 33. -As others have observed, the draft classes skew too heavily by quantity and quality toward European and Russian players right now. Increasing the number of Canadians and Americans, as well as the number of Canadians and Americans that rate at the "top player" or "outstanding player" potential level, would be great in terms of making scouting more intuitive and reflective of real-world dynamics. -I very much agree that additional storylines would liven up the Inbox, or perhaps a "news" box that could be added to the GM home screen. I suspect some of these could be easy to implement - the "Milestones" screen already exists, so a story could be generated when one of those milestones is met. A similar story could generate when a player passes 30 goals, 100 points, or whatever number makes sense for the given league (perhaps it could be editable by the commissioner). Team ownership also changes periodically, so that could generate a story when the team owner field updates, much like the GM hirings and firings. The team finances screen is also a bit opaque right now, perhaps these numbers could periodically generate a "franchise value ranking" similar to the annual Forbes rankings so we could see the variance by market. The list of players taken in the first round of a past draft could be merged with those players' current teams and stats to generate a report, as a means of periodically checking in on how those picks panned out. (note that this last one won't be very entertaining unless further variability and unpredictability is injected into the draft process) -Rivalries are important enough in hockey that NBC Sports at least attempts to market a night of programming around them. The "Edit Team" screen should offer an option to identify 1 or 2 core rivals for each team, so that the game generates a preview when Pittsburgh plays Philadelphia, or Calgary plays Edmonton, with a synopsis of how the teams compare and how their star players are matching up. It could even slightly ratchet up the penalties assessed during those games, or affect the mood of the players when they beat a hated rival. It would also be very cool to have dynamic rivalries that come and go, perhaps based on multiple playoff meetings in a given period of time (e.g. Chicago-Vancouver, or one team injuring the star player of the other (e.g. Pittsburgh-Boston). After a specified interval of time where the rivalry conditions aren't reinvigorated by re-triggering any of these conditions, games between these teams would revert to normal non-rivalry treatment. -When it comes to free agency, money is a big thing, but it isn't the only thing. If players are considering other factors in their decision it should be more evident, or new factors should be added. For example, a player from British Columbia could place a premium on an offer from the Canucks, but also be intrigued by offers from a team in Seattle or Calgary. Perhaps some star players would prefer a big media market (maybe tie it to the Greed and Ambition ratings as a crude means of relating it to endorsement potential). Others might prefer to play in a smaller market where they can live more anonymously. Maybe a player with high loyalty, toward the middle or end of his career, would be interested in returning for a second tour of duty with a team he played for in the past that treated him well. -Being able to import a team roster from another save file would be great. As an example of the value of this, it might be fun to be able to create a custom league of the 7 Canadian teams, plus a relocated eighth team playing the role of the Nordiques, using all the real rosters for those teams as an all-Canada pro league. That's a lot of data entry to make that happen right now, there's got to be a better way!