FHM 3 still can't develop players

[WIUPIKE]

Originally Posted by no way

I just simmed 45 years in Custom 30 team league (minor and junior leagues included) and After going through leaderboards and draft logs rarely some players reach 4 stars and 5 stars is like once a decade thing. Same goes for point leaders, after the players that were generated at the start of the game retired rarely someone got over 110 ussually leader was between 90 and 110 with average scoring set to ~6 goals per game that is weak (Record being 153 set in 5th season and top 7 is held by same player)

For fictional could it be similar to what happens in OOTP that the "Big Bang" players are better than the draft classes to start and takes several years a few decades to get the talent level coming in to be solid?

[no way]

Originally Posted by WIUPIKE

For fictional could it be similar to what happens in OOTP that the "Big Bang" players are better than the draft classes to start and takes several years a few decades to get the talent level coming in to be solid?

Well I simmed 45 years that should be solid enough I'd say isue is that rarelly players reach their potential ever, not saing that all of them should reach the max potential ofcourse there are always "blow-ups" (We SJS fans remember Pat Falloon to name one).

[jwr38]

I just simmed another 20 years in a fictional nhl league (including minor and juniors).

Developing is not happening. There is a huge lack of players in the FA so that means there are 18 - 20 year olds on the main team with half star ability. Only guys above 30 have more than 3 stars. there are some younger than that but it is rare. I always have guys above 35 as my top scorers. Are you having the same?

I added it to FTP under "test 30 teams" so others can look through too. still adding at time of post

[scootermojo]

Originally Posted by JeffR

It'll be blank in yours, the guys just fixed the bug that's causing that.

Cool, that's awesome and thanks....but I gotta admit it would've been nice if you would've told me that in the actual thread I started dealing directly with that very subject.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by jwr38

I just simmed another 20 years in a fictional nhl league (including minor and juniors).

Developing is not happening. There is a huge lack of players in the FA so that means there are 18 - 20 year olds on the main team with half star ability. Only guys above 30 have more than 3 stars. there are some younger than that but it is rare. I always have guys above 35 as my top scorers. Are you having the same?

I added it to FTP under "test 30 teams" so others can look through too. still adding at time of post

I looked at the save:

-there is no "huge lack of players" in free agency; I count at least a couple of hundred with 2+ stars (for anyone reading, this is a custom game with no leagues besides the NHL, AHL, and junior - in the regular game these guys would go to other leagues.)
-there were 20 players in the NHL rated 1 star or below; however, once I advanced the game from September to October and teams finished adjusting their rosters, there were only 12 left, all of whom had at least 3-star potential, most 4+
-there are more 5-star players in their late 30's than I'd like to see; however, I also see about 30 4-stars under 30 and a 5-star who's only 23.
-the ages of the leading NHL scorers in the 10 previous seasons were 26, 28, 28, 34, 33, 31, 30, 29, 28, and 27; that's a long way from always having guys above 35 as your top scorers.

Is it perfect? No, I see some things that I think need adjustment. But it's wildly inaccurate to say "development is not happening."

[no way]

Originally Posted by JeffR

I looked at the save:

-there is no "huge lack of players" in free agency; I count at least a couple of hundred with 2+ stars (for anyone reading, this is a custom game with no leagues besides the NHL, AHL, and junior - in the regular game these guys would go to other leagues.)
-there were 20 players in the NHL rated 1 star or below; however, once I advanced the game from September to October and teams finished adjusting their rosters, there were only 12 left, all of whom had at least 3-star potential, most 4+
-there are more 5-star players in their late 30's than I'd like to see; however, I also see about 30 4-stars under 30 and a 5-star who's only 23.
-the ages of the leading NHL scorers in the 10 previous seasons were 26, 28, 28, 34, 33, 31, 30, 29, 28, and 27; that's a long way from always having guys above 35 as your top scorers.

Is it perfect? No, I see some things that I think need adjustment. But it's wildly inaccurate to say "development is not happening."

I can upload for you a Custom 30 team league save (with minors and juniors) that have after 45 seasons in total 1 active player that reached 5 stars and 3 (out of the 3 the 41 years old is retired so make it 2) that have 4.5 stars, next is whole 8 players who reached 4 stars, plenty 5 star potential but majority never reaches it.
here is search only filter applied is age 18 - 45
rosters are full of 2 - 3 stars ability with on average 3 players above that, some teams don't have even 1.

[checkyoursixx]

To me.. the alarming thing about those screenshots is the lack "hidden gems" in the draft.

If you look at the players who developed the best from those drafts (they are sorted by star rating), almost all of them are in the first round. Most of which were top 10 picks. Very rarely does that actually happen in the NHL.

If you take past drafts (2009-2012) as an example.. you'll see that the top players don't always come from the first round..

2012

Galchenyuk (3rd)
Rielly (5th)
Lindholm (6th)
Forsberg (11th)
Hertl (17th)
Gostisbehere (78th)
Parayko (86th)

Then you had guys in the later rounds become NHL regulars such as Paquette (101st), Slavin (120th)
2011

Nugent-Hopkins (1st)
Landeskog (2nd)
Huberdeau (3rd)
Zibanejad (6th)
Scheifele (7th)
Saad (43rd)
Gaudreau (204th)

Then of course a lot of NHL regulars in later rounds such as Trocheck (64th), Pageau (96th), Reider (114th) and Shaw (139th)

2010

Hall (1st)
Seguin (2nd)
Johansen (4th)
Skinner (7th)
Tarasenko (16th)
Kuznetsov (26th)
Faulk (37th)
Klingberg (131st)
Gallagher (147th)
Stone (178th)

Lots of top players taken after the first round in this draft.

2009

Tavares (1st)
Hedman (2nd)
Duchene (3rd)
OEL (6th)
O'Rielly (33rd)
Tatar (60th)
Barrie (64th)
Hoffman (130th)

2009 had a ton of NHL regulars in late rounds such as Cizikas (92nd), Ekholm (102nd), Vatanen (106th), Kruger (149th), Lee (152nd), Haula (182nd)

The question remains, when will we start to see some real late round steals in FHM?. Right now if you have a top 10 pick, you are almost sure of getting your next star player. At worse, you have yourself a top 6 player. I'd like to see some stars come out of the later rounds.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

The game will always need more tweaks to stuff like this but taking a random game (real setup, not fictional) in 2030 and looking at the 2025/26 draft I see a nice variation of picks and how they develop. Again, of course it is not perfect and we will continue to tweak it but it is also far from bad.

[WIUPIKE]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

The game will always need more tweaks to stuff like this but taking a random game (real setup, not fictional) in 2030 and looking at the 2025/26 draft I see a nice variation of picks and how they develop. Again, of course it is not perfect and we will continue to tweak it but it is also far from bad.

Sebastian,

Could you post more of that draft class to see how players later rounds in the draft have developed?

[Rand]

I've been doing a long term sim, now out to 2032 (I'll post the results in a full thread later when the league is entirely filled with generated players) but there are definitely quality players coming out of the later rounds.
Not a ton of them, but their there.
If anything, I'd say the drafts in game aren't as top heavy as they typically are in reality.

My biggest concerns right now are salary deflation as league wide salary demands drop considerably and no teams appear to have any issues staying well under the salary cap. At the point where I am now the salary cap is largely irrelevant.

Veterans also stay very good very long, it seems like significant decline doesn't start until players reach their late 30's. So most players in their early to mid 30's are still relatively close to their peak.
Combined with the generated players as a group not being as good as those in the game at the start and you have a league that seems to trend increasingly older through the 2020's until the initial group retires and it reaches something closer to a stable state.


Thus far (and again, I think I need another ~10yrs to say for certain) I think players need to decline a bit quicker, and develop a little better then they are.
That plus tweaks to the player contract demands and I think long term sims should come out very well
It has issues right now, but none appear to be substantial enough that small adjustments couldn't make for a remarkably plausible long term outlook.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Rand

My biggest concerns right now are salary deflation as league wide salary demands drop considerably and no teams appear to have any issues staying well under the salary cap. At the point where I am now the salary cap is largely irrelevant.

I think I found the problem there. We added some code last year that reduced salary offers/demands if a player's game ratings had been lower than a certain level (there were actually a couple of steps to it), and the way we adjusted game ratings this year moved the average down far enough that way too many players were hitting the threshold for lower demands.

[jwr38]

couldn't play today as of work but I am happy people are seeing that the development isn't prefect but just as happy to hear the team is tweaking this area.

I hope I get to play around tomorrow to see if I can see any other patterns. I want a good game to release as then the user base will be larger

[no way]

Originally Posted by Rand

Veterans also stay very good very long, it seems like significant decline doesn't start until players reach their late 30's. So most players in their early to mid 30's are still relatively close to their peak.
Combined with the generated players as a group not being as good as those in the game at the start and you have a league that seems to trend increasingly older through the 2020's until the initial group retires and it reaches something closer to a stable state.

Thus far (and again, I think I need another ~10yrs to say for certain) I think players need to decline a bit quicker, and develop a little better then they are.
That plus tweaks to the player contract demands and I think long term sims should come out very well
It has issues right now, but none appear to be substantial enough that small adjustments couldn't make for a remarkably plausible long term outlook.

I would agree with that, noticed aswell that quite a few players who are high ability just retire strait out of like 80+ point season at ~40, it can happen on ocasion but there should be some ability decline before retiring, (In historical I had Gordie Howe scoring 89, 82, 59 points in his last season as 51 years old and then retiring and 72 points while retiring at 44)
I tryed Aging 40 on one player to see how long he will stay and he retired at 59 as 5 star ability player.

[Krillo]

I get a strange thing on my game on the prospects development. On every single development report its seems like the players that i have drafted but not yet signed develop better than the players that i brought over to my franchise.
And the players that i sign are always the guys whit the highest potential. So if i see that the 3-star guy that i didn`t sign the first year develops at a much higher pace than the 5-star guy i have, then on the next summer when i have signed the 3-star guy all of a sudden his development slows down(from 5-6 points to 1-2). Every single time.
It feels kinda strange that a guys development rate slows down when he plays regularly in the AHL and not when he played in Swedish lower division and it doesn`t matter if the player has settled or not.

[Rand]

Originally Posted by Krillo

I get a strange thing on my game on the prospects development. On every single development report its seems like the players that i have drafted but not yet signed develop better than the players that i brought over to my franchise.
And the players that i sign are always the guys whit the highest potential. So if i see that the 3-star guy that i didn`t sign the first year develops at a much higher pace than the 5-star guy i have, then on the next summer when i have signed the 3-star guy all of a sudden his development slows down(from 5-6 points to 1-2). Every single time.
It feels kinda strange that a guys development rate slows down when he plays regularly in the AHL and not when he played in Swedish lower division and it doesn`t matter if the player has settled or not.

I've seen that posted a few times, but can't confirm it here as my long term sims have all been done without my interacting with the game at all. How long have you played?
If it's only 5-6yrs it could be just a sample size related fluke.

On a vaguely related topic-
The further out I sim the more concerned I am with the age related decline, people really aren't declining or retiring at an appropriate rate.

Examples, just from one off season.
Malkin retires at 44, still 2.5 stars.
Ekman Larsson at 39, still 4 stars.
Carey Price at 43, still 4.5 stars.
Sidney Crosby at 43, still 4 stars
Rask at 43, still 3 stars
Doughty at at 41, still 3 stars.

I just did a check at there are presently 11 players over 40yrs old in the NHL in-game, ranging from 2 to 4 stars. In reality there are 3 such players right now, Cullen and Doan are both 40. And the ageless Jagr is 44 and now the 3rd oldest position player in NHL history.
For further comparison, in game there are 65 players in the NHL at age 35+. That number is 39 in the real NHL.

Right now I think decline needs to be a bit quicker in the early 30's to slightly trim the list of players of age 35+ and decline needs to be substantially quicker for players reaching their 40's.

[Krillo]

I've just completed my 7th season.
I feel the same everything neads to be a bit faster. Development and age decline.
And i am starting to feel like there is a goalie shortage. its only one keeper in the league thats under 25.
I also noticed that when you look on the NHL entry draft log a lot of the "best" player from each class is just B-scouted. So the classes that i already think are a bit weak are actually weaker

[Krillo]

So now this happens: my first round pick diden`t want to sign whit a NHL team. So he signed a Swedish lower division(div4) team. And the problem is that he is to good for that league so he has the (This level of competition is limiting the players development) ticked. But in my development reports he is still getting 5-8 points every month. Great!!! But no. I took some screenshots of his ratings every month and he is actually losing 3-6 points every month.
So i just don't see the logic, that if he would just have 1 star ability he would develop but now he is too good because he has 2 stars so he declines in rating when he is 19yr??? And why would he move from the swiss league to Swedish Div4 when he should be a star i the Swedish top division.
He haven't been injured and he is playing games.

Also why do players gain ratings when they are injured sometimes the whole month?

I just think it would be easier if all teams hade facility ratings (like in FM) that sets the speed of a players development depending on teams budget and and quality of facility and not the league rating that's there now, or i would gladly hear a logical explanation whats good whit this model sorry for the whining but i hate playing whit old players and not succeeding with the prospects

[Rand]

Continuing on from my earlier post on player aging/retirement.
Same sim, now in 2040. Some other noteable incredibly late retirements.

Justin Faulk retired at 45, 1.5 stars.
Ben Bishop retired at 50!! still 3 stars.
Tyler Seguin retired at 45, still 3 starts.
Matt Duchene retired at 46, 2 stars.
Sergei Bobrovsky retired at 48, 1.5 stars
Braden Holtby retired at 47, 2 stars.

Currently in the sim there are now 84 players are over the age of 35.
The number over 40 has shrank to 6 though.
This included a 43 yr old Jack Eichel whose still 5 stars.
The oldest player is Connor Hellebuyck whose 47yrs old.


If these were rare exceptions it would be okay, anomalies happen. Jagr and Chelios etc.
But their not too uncommon in the game. Most hall of fame inductees in the game retire toward their mid 40's.


Update: Eichel ended up retiring at 52yrs old. He was 3.5 stars then.

[Rand]

Another point, goaltending development may need to be looked at. There are only 6 goaltenders in the NHL that are more then 2 stars.
The best goaltender in the world is 4 stars.

Other positions appear to have an array of ratings that's reasonably close to that given in the starting database.

I'll have to check further to see if it persists.
(Sim is currently in 2049)

[JeffR]

Not sure what's going on with the retirements in custom games, they seem to be OK in regular games. We'll look at it.