Historical Simming and Comparing/Contrasting to RL

[DawnBTVS]

I thought this would be a good thread to have for those who are tweaking the scoring for the NHL and Historical Simming to see how the progress is going both for "random" years and modern day. This may change reflective upon the tweaked scoring coming in the new update.

Note: I do not control any of these teams. RL Stats come from Hockey-Reference.com. Everything will be on "default" settings, nothing edited or changed.

1962 NHL
Real Life: Minimum TG was 194. Highest were 221 and 225. 6 Players had 30+ Goals. 9 Players had 40+ Assists. 4 Players had 70+ Points. Gordie Howe led with 38 G/48 A for 86 P. Top GAA were 2.46, 2.47, and 2.49. SO were 5.

Simming
- TOR led with 163 Goals. Range was 132-163. Andy Bathgate and Dave Keon led with 29 Goals. Johnny Bucyk led with 31 A. Andy Bathgate led with 55 Points.

Glenn Hall had a 1.91 GAA and Johnny Bower had a 1.95 GAA. It's clear that the Goalies were way overpowered here (Top 4 were at 2.18 GAA or under).

1983 NHL
Real Life: Top TG range seems to be 335-360 (Edmonton was 446). 8 Players had 50+ Goals. 5 Players had 70+ Assists. 8 Players had 111+ Points. Top GAA were 2.66, 2.84, and 2.91. Top Save % was .903.

Simming
- DET led with 224 G and NYI followed with 220. Mike Bossy led with 44 G. Bryan Trottier led with 52 A and Steve Yzerman had 50 A. Mike Bossy led with 77 P and Rick Middleton was 2nd with 76.

Again, the issue appeared to be overpowered goalies (not sure if that's a carryover from modern day?). Grant Fuhr led with a 1.98 GAA and the top 4 goalies were all at 2.09 or under. Markus Mattsson led with a .927 Save % followed by Fuhr at .925.

I'll try to add some other years later but it seems currently that the goalies (and their attributes? The league settings?) are simply way, way too overpowered.

[Orioles1966]

What's the point of playing if everything comes out the same as it did in real life? I want my leagues too be completely different in my world. Expansion,etc.

[DawnBTVS]

Originally Posted by Orioles1966

What's the point of playing if everything comes out the same as it did in real life? I want my leagues too be completely different in my world. Expansion,etc.

I don't want them to be the exact same but within the same ballpark would be nice. Anybody who has played OOTP knows that a lot of the charm of its historical simming is seeing the gradual development of "eras" (e.g. deadball into growing power into the Golden Age into the pitcher's dominance, etc.). This also transitions into being able to set up fictional leagues that can replicate say the Dead Ball Era if you want or the peak HR Crazy era of 1997-2001.

I'd like to kind of recapture that feeling. If I'm playing a season from say 1979-1986 when scoring is really high and players like Wayne Gretzky were closing in on 180-200 points a season, it's far from the same feeling when players can't even crack 80-90 points by season's end. Same with playing out the "Dead Puck" Era of 1994-1999 with Goalies challenging the 2.00 GAA mark and 50 Goals being impressive.

So that means there is an issue somewhere, whether it be attributes or "league" settings or something. This isn't really meant to replicate the seasons down to the exact same but more to help the guys coding/testing the game to maybe see what kinks need to be worked out.

[Orioles1966]

Originally Posted by DawnBTVS

I don't want them to be the exact same but within the same ballpark would be nice. Anybody who has played OOTP knows that a lot of the charm of its historical simming is seeing the gradual development of "eras" (e.g. deadball into growing power into the Golden Age into the pitcher's dominance, etc.). This also transitions into being able to set up fictional leagues that can replicate say the Dead Ball Era if you want or the peak HR Crazy era of 1997-2001.

I'd like to kind of recapture that feeling. If I'm playing a season from say 1979-1986 when scoring is really high and players like Wayne Gretzky were closing in on 180-200 points a season, it's far from the same feeling when players can't even crack 80-90 points by season's end.

So that means there is an issue somewhere, whether it be attributes or "league" settings or something. This isn't really meant to replicate the seasons down to the exact same but more to help the guys coding/testing the game to maybe see what kinks need to be worked out.

When I play OOTP and bring players from the past into the modern times,often they don't play as well.

I would like too see expansion teams play on an even keel with other teams instead of being everyone's patsy.

[DawnBTVS]

Not sure how importing guys from past years to modern day or expansion teams has anything to do with what I'm discussing but okay, Orioles1966

My main point or worry is just how much difference there is. For a season like 1983 where teams scored well above 315+ goals on the year, to have a simulation struggle to have teams score more than 210 goals (almost 100+ goals LESS) is deeper than just not being exact or anything of that nature.

I understand that scoring is being tweaked and such but at heart, I'm a historical player and simmer. I love seeing guys overachieve/underachieve based on how they performed in real life. I'd love to see Cam Neely/Adam Oates/Ray Bourque in a run & gun Oilers type system.

Where I'm coming from is that something is wrong with the scoring and I'm legit not sure if it's due to the scoring being "set" for modern day playing settings or if it's an issue with the ratings/positions as shown with how dominant the goalies in particular were.

The only comparison I could make is: You start an MLB Season in 2001 with guys hitting 50+ HRs and getting 130+ RBIs. Then you sim the entire season and your leading HR slugger tops out at 24 HRs with 77 RBIs while the pitchers are putting up ERAs similar to peak Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson. There would be something more than just, "We don't need the seasons to be exactly the same!!"

[gosens]

I think it is tremendously important for a league to have periods with more or less scoring, better or poorer goaltending, etc. This is that not only adds character to the results and creates opportunities for records to be broken from time to time, it also removes the monotony of having similar results year after year.

This is why I actually found EHM rather dull.

I see several ways of achieving this:

- Having overall league scoring / defense / goaltending rates, hidden, that change year to year - possibly along a trend line (up, down, stagnant) that is set every 5 or 10 years. This can affect sim scoring rates directly, or tendencies for the strategies set by AI coaches (run-and-gun, trap, etc being in vogue as the case may be).

- Having these same rates for the quality of the newly generated players - in offense, defense, and goaltending. As with the point above the quality ratings can go up/down by year and follow a trend line set every 5 or 10 years.

I like the second one better... it allows for variance in the players that are generated from generation to generation, and the combination of better or worse offense, defense and goaltending is able to affect the scoring trends. In the '80s for example the high scoring would have been fed by excellent offensive stock with poor defensive and goaltending stock.

[sprague]

Again you guys are missing the point...dawn is making an important statement

if this is supposed to be a historical game, then the game should be expected to produce somewhat historical results. This is way way off and is major problem.

if wayne gretzky plays 80 games in 1983 and can not pick up at least 160 points then something is seriously wrong. this is the very point i was trying to make in the "my concern" thread, but everyone just wanted to attack me.

Well its june, supposedly 2 months from release. Shouldn't such things be long ago corrected?

[gosens]

Originally Posted by sprague

Again you guys are missing the point...dawn is making an important statement

Not missing the point... I agree with Dawn, I feel the same way about the historical game scoring. It doesn't need to be exact but it should be in the right ballpark (to mix metaphors).

The mechanics of that should also facilitate present-day or fictional simming as well, and I was making a suggestion on a dynamic way to make that happen. (Which could have been a separate post I suppose.) Obviously for the historical game, the levels should be set accordingly for each historic year.

[Merla]

I've mentioned this before and Jeff is aware of the problem. Its the same for the 2012-2013 season where f.e. Crosby lands around 60-70 points.. This will be fixed.

[archibalduk]

Originally Posted by Merla

I've mentioned this before and Jeff is aware of the problem. Its the same for the 2012-2013 season where f.e. Crosby lands around 60-70 points.. This will be fixed.

Precisely! As mentioned by Jeff in the sticky thread announcing the latest beta:

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to get the league-specific goals per game and other similar settings working this week. It'll be at the top of the priority list for the next update.

I can see from the Researcher DB Editor that we can set Goals per Game, Penalties per Game and Assists per Game on a per season basis for the NHL (I don't know whether this list of settings is definite or whether there will be additional settings in the future - being a beta and all). Once the settings system is working correctly in game and once Jeff has input the individual settings for NHL each season then the game will most likely achieve exactly the point DawnBTVS is making.

[mgom27]

Historical Transactions and Lineups to.