State of FHM: July 13

[pens66]

Originally Posted by sprague

I am bumping Rob's question. It is very important, and no one seems to be answering it

Indeed, it is one of these core aspects that is completely ignored so far.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Rob316

Hi Jeff, I have a simple question that I hope you wouldn't mind addressing... I've seen far to many players that don't fight and take penalties becoming PIM leaders and fighting major leaders in my games (Yakopov, Semin) and would like to ask if they're is any way you guys will be fixing the physical side of things such as teams dressing tough players and addressing they're lineups with playing a tougher game as well ?

The Enforcers in the game are virtually useless and many teams who do have some tough and tumble players very rarely play them or even bother using them at all. Can we all expect to see the leagues value these players more rather then them becoming UFA's and staying unsigned or demoted to the minor leagues for they're careers ? I only ask this because I love to sport a tough team and usually find the way the players are reacting especially the players who do regulary fight not actually performing into they're roles. I have noticed virtually every team in the NHL demotes anyone with toughness leaving teams with no sense to even dress guys that can fight leaving the feeling of a soft approach to the game ..

The enforcers do have an in-game effect. I'm not going to into specific detail about what it is, because I'd like to leave that situation similar to how it is in real life - there's a perceived effect, but no one can quantify it.

The AI, so far, doesn't understand that, so it winds up benching and demoting the goons. I've addressed that in the new scouting/valuation system, so once that's working you won't see teams ignoring guys who can fight well and play at a borderline-acceptable level or better. It's a difficult balance, though, considering where we're at right now in real-life use of enforcers - many teams don't fill that role anymore. So enforcers need to be useful, but not essential, to get approximately the right levels of usage, and that's a pretty fine point to try to balance on.

Re: non-fighters fighting too often, I think the primary cause of that right now is also the AI - by leaving the fighters off the rosters and undervaluing that skill in general, it creates a situation where there tends to be 5 soft players on the top units, and when they run into a tough opponent who instigates a fight, the least-soft winds up going a lot more often than he should. That's not all of it, I see some ratings issues that need to be fixed with Yakupov and Semin, but it's a big part.

[Rob316]

Originally Posted by JeffR

The enforcers do have an in-game effect. I'm not going to into specific detail about what it is, because I'd like to leave that situation similar to how it is in real life - there's a perceived effect, but no one can quantify it.

The AI, so far, doesn't understand that, so it winds up benching and demoting the goons. I've addressed that in the new scouting/valuation system, so once that's working you won't see teams ignoring guys who can fight well and play at a borderline-acceptable level or better. It's a difficult balance, though, considering where we're at right now in real-life use of enforcers - many teams don't fill that role anymore. So enforcers need to be useful, but not essential, to get approximately the right levels of usage, and that's a pretty fine point to try to balance on.

Re: non-fighters fighting too often, I think the primary cause of that right now is also the AI - by leaving the fighters off the rosters and undervaluing that skill in general, it creates a situation where there tends to be 5 soft players on the top units, and when they run into a tough opponent who instigates a fight, the least-soft winds up going a lot more often than he should. That's not all of it, I see some ratings issues that need to be fixed with Yakupov and Semin, but it's a big part.

Thanks Jeff.. With so much requests and questions I'd like to personally thank you for taking the time to shed some light on this subject, you guys are doing a hell'va job! I'm excited to hear that this aspect of the game isn't being ignored and eagerly look forward to the final outcome come release! Cheers and thanks again buddy.

[sprague]

Originally Posted by JeffR

The enforcers do have an in-game effect. I'm not going to into specific detail about what it is, because I'd like to leave that situation similar to how it is in real life - there's a perceived effect, but no one can quantify it.

The AI, so far, doesn't understand that, so it winds up benching and demoting the goons. I've addressed that in the new scouting/valuation system, so once that's working you won't see teams ignoring guys who can fight well and play at a borderline-acceptable level or better. It's a difficult balance, though, considering where we're at right now in real-life use of enforcers - many teams don't fill that role anymore. So enforcers need to be useful, but not essential, to get approximately the right levels of usage, and that's a pretty fine point to try to balance on.

Re: non-fighters fighting too often, I think the primary cause of that right now is also the AI - by leaving the fighters off the rosters and undervaluing that skill in general, it creates a situation where there tends to be 5 soft players on the top units, and when they run into a tough opponent who instigates a fight, the least-soft winds up going a lot more often than he should. That's not all of it, I see some ratings issues that need to be fixed with Yakupov and Semin, but it's a big part.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops, especially for historical play- or someone who wants a 60's, 70;s 80's layout for their league

how well the game handles physical play, value of semenko, schultz, probert, as well as accurately gained pim's for tougher players will be a major factor if replay guys will try the game or not
have brawls been coded into the game structure yet?

ps- don't forget on the main boxscore screen to include pims. it was an irritating feature of ehm to only have goals and shots on the main box, you had to click into the summery for each game to check pim's which took a lot of time