My biggest issue with EHM - How will you solve this?

[Merla]

I prefer managing in the Swedish league and the main issue I have with EHM 2007 is that the NHL teams sign players and bring them over immediately after they have been drafted, meaning there is no point at all in having good youth players in the European leagues in EHM.

How will you be looking at this? It's a very important aspect of the game if you're managing a team in Europe and EHM failed big time here, so I'm just very interested in how the game and the NHL-teams will act with drafted Europeans.

Will the NHL teams be able to sign the drafted player and then have him loaned out to his European team for a season (which happens very often irl)?
And will they have more patience and sign players who were drafted in the 2nd-7th round when they have had their breakthrough in f.e. the Swedish Elitserien?

Oh, and thanks A LOT for making this game!

[RchW]

This is not a new version of EHM. How do you know it will have this problem?

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Merla

I prefer managing in the Swedish league and the main issue I have with EHM 2007 is that the NHL teams sign players and bring them over immediately after they have been drafted, meaning there is no point at all in having good youth players in the European leagues in EHM.

Do you have any ideas on how to solve this?

Will the NHL teams be able to sign the drafted player and then have him loaned out to his European team for a season (which happens very often irl)?
And will they have more patience and sign players who were drafted in the 2nd-7th round when they have had their breakthrough in f.e. the Swedish Elitserien?

Oh, and thanks A LOT for making this game!

Very often? Examples of that please.

[frisland]

Rangers signed both Fasth and Lindberg this summer and left them in Sweden.
Ott with Silfverberg last season.
used to happen a lot more with the CBA that expired in 04.

[Merla]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Very often? Examples of that please.

Sure.

This seasons NHL-players who are in the Swedish Elitserien on loan from NHL:

Joakim Nordstrom, AIK (Chicago).
Nicklas Jensen, AIK (Vancouver).
Carl Jarnkrok, Brynäs (Detroit).
Emil Molin, Brynäs (Dallas).
Oscar Klefbom, Färjestad (Edmonton).
Jesper Fasth, HV71 (NY Rangers).
Johan Gustafsson, Luleå (Minnesota).
Ludvig Bystrom, MODO (Dallas).
Petter Granberg, Skellefteå (Toronto).
Oscar Lindberg, Skellefteå (NY Rangers).
Max Friberg, Timrå (Anaheim).
Tim Heed, Växjö (Anaheim).

So it's pretty much one player per team in the Swedish Elitserien, quite a lot I would say.

RchW: Of course it's not a new EHM. I'm just expressing my concern regarding something that may be hard to code (I suppose) and where EHM failed big time, therefore I'm asking how Sebastian and the others will "solve this". I'm just curious!

[JeffR]

We're just getting to the point of figuring out roster management AI, so I can't really say anything concrete on the issue because I don't know what the guys have in mind. But here's how I'd frame the problem; it's much more complex than it seems:

First, there are two different situations here: under-20 and 20+ players. The under-20's are a distinct case because, although they're signed to an NHL contract, the contract "slides" if they don't play professionally in North America, so their three years doesn't start ticking until they join the NHL team (or one of their farm teams.) So there's a decision process for 18-19 year-olds:

1. Is the player good enough for the NHL? Easiest solution if this is true, he stays with the NHL team.
2. If that doesn't apply, can he play in the AHL? If he played major junior, the answer is no, so the choices are either back to junior or going to Europe. The latter is rarer, but happens in a case like Nicklas Jensen where the team thinks the player is at a point where he won't develop as much in junior.
3. If he can play in the AHL, is there room for him? If he's going to get stuck on the fourth line or in the ECHL, it probably makes more sense to place him elsewhere. EHM didn't make good decisions in this regard.
4. If the AHL is out, Where does he want to go? This where EHM really broke down: if a major junior team held his rights, he'd always get sent there, even if he hadn't played for them before and had a different preference (Europe/college.) What should've happened is a check on the player's wishes re: major junior or Europe.

For 20+ players, it's a bit different, and harder for an AI to handle. The central issue is burning a contract year to send him back to Europe, where he's out of the team's developmental control. The real-life reasons are a bit more varied, and it's not a simple checklist as above. Maybe the NHL team have a lot of AHL depth at the player's position and they think he'll get more playing time and/or better competition overseas. Maybe the player preferes remaining in Europe (that one's tough to model - how do you make a guy willing to sign an NHL contract but reluctant to play in North America?) Maybe he's no longer in the NHL team's plans.

So, the problem is a lot muddier. I don't have an instant answer on how to resolve it: hopefully building an AI that manages its farm resources sensibly will be enough to produce realistic results for the 20+ guys. If not, then it becomes time to start making specific code to deal with this situation (and at that point, it's a decision whether spending time working on that takes priority over some other area.)

[Winnipeg59]

Assuming FHM is anything like OOTP (as opposed to EHM), maybe a "no trading between leagues" checkmark would do the trick in the setup options?

Or, again assuming a similarity to OOTP, just run the Swedish Elite League and delte any sort of NHL league equivilant, unless of course you eventually want to have players migrate to another league, just not as early on.

Cannot WAIT for more info on this game - big picture and details...

[Javs]

Originally Posted by JeffR

We're just getting to the point of figuring out roster management AI, so I can't really say anything concrete on the issue because I don't know what the guys have in mind. But here's how I'd frame the problem; it's much more complex than it seems:

First, there are two different situations here: under-20 and 20+ players. The under-20's are a distinct case because, although they're signed to an NHL contract, the contract "slides" if they don't play professionally in North America, so their three years doesn't start ticking until they join the NHL team (or one of their farm teams.) So there's a decision process for 18-19 year-olds:

1. Is the player good enough for the NHL? Easiest solution if this is true, he stays with the NHL team.
2. If that doesn't apply, can he play in the AHL? If he played major junior, the answer is no, so the choices are either back to junior or going to Europe. The latter is rarer, but happens in a case like Nicklas Jensen where the team thinks the player is at a point where he won't develop as much in junior.
3. If he can play in the AHL, is there room for him? If he's going to get stuck on the fourth line or in the ECHL, it probably makes more sense to place him elsewhere. EHM didn't make good decisions in this regard.
4. If the AHL is out, Where does he want to go? This where EHM really broke down: if a major junior team held his rights, he'd always get sent there, even if he hadn't played for them before and had a different preference (Europe/college.) What should've happened is a check on the player's wishes re: major junior or Europe.

For 20+ players, it's a bit different, and harder for an AI to handle. The central issue is burning a contract year to send him back to Europe, where he's out of the team's developmental control. The real-life reasons are a bit more varied, and it's not a simple checklist as above. Maybe the NHL team have a lot of AHL depth at the player's position and they think he'll get more playing time and/or better competition overseas. Maybe the player preferes remaining in Europe (that one's tough to model - how do you make a guy willing to sign an NHL contract but reluctant to play in North America?) Maybe he's no longer in the NHL team's plans.

So, the problem is a lot muddier. I don't have an instant answer on how to resolve it: hopefully building an AI that manages its farm resources sensibly will be enough to produce realistic results for the 20+ guys. If not, then it becomes time to start making specific code to deal with this situation (and at that point, it's a decision whether spending time working on that takes priority over some other area.)

Speaking of roster management, another this EHM was terrible at was controlling it's minor league rosters. Will you guys be trying to ensure the AI in FHM will be able to understand the veteran and developmental player roster rules?

[erikthered]

Originally Posted by Javs

Speaking of roster management, another this EHM was terrible at was controlling it's minor league rosters. Will you guys be trying to ensure the AI in FHM will be able to understand the veteran and developmental player roster rules?

I always got aggravated when some of my main prospects that I wanted to develop in the AHL hardly saw time, while washed up guys that didn't deserve an NHL spot got started frequently.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Javs

Speaking of roster management, another this EHM was terrible at was controlling it's minor league rosters. Will you guys be trying to ensure the AI in FHM will be able to understand the veteran and developmental player roster rules?

We can try, but I wouldn't expect miracles. Any oddball roster rules really make roster AI a lot more complicated, and the AHL developmental rules are pretty firmly in that category. It's a pain just making them work, let alone getting the computer to figure out how to deal with them.

Originally Posted by erikthered

I always got aggravated when some of my main prospects that I wanted to develop in the AHL hardly saw time, while washed up guys that didn't deserve an NHL spot got started frequently.

That happens in real life, too, though, particularly when the AHL team isn't owned by the NHL one. But OOTP does allow detailed minor league roster control by the user, so that may be possible here, too; I'm not sure what Sebastian has in mind.

[ElQuapo]

Another thing regarding the relationship between the NHL and Europe that I hope this game does better than EHM, is the difference in player strength.

I EHM, there was a problem, that the NHL teams would sign almost every single player in the database that was good enough to play in the NHL. In order to stop all players from moving to the NHL, the European based players were made artificially bad.

The ability rating was 0-200, and the NHL would mostly sign any player with an ability above 100-120. Therefore top European based players who had no intention of joining the NHL would be rated at most with an ability of about 120. So even a top European team would have players averaging around 100 in ability.

Exhibition games between NHL teams and European teams would result in the NHL teams winning by 7-8 goals or more, which is totally unrealistic. In real life European teams have actually beaten NHL teams in pre-season exhibition matches, and while the NHL teams do win most contests, they do not beat the cr.. out of the European teams. Even AHL teams would beat most European teams in EHM.

The same problem carried on over the the World Championships and Olympics, where nations with most of their players based in Europe would get handled by 7-8 goals or more by nations loaded with NHL players. Again, this is totally unrealistic. Nations like Denmark and Norway might get their a.... kicked like this occasionally, but even with only European based players they do not loose this big very often. And nations like Sweden, Russia or Finland should be able to compete quite well at the World Championships even if the only used players from their home leagues. In EHM this was just impossible, and was a big flaw in the game IMHO.

To solve this problem, we need to have some factors contributing to players staying in Europe even though they are actually good enough for the NHL. Factors could be players not wanting to play on the 3rd or 4th line in the NHL, while they could play on the 1st line in a European league. Another factor could be players who were never drafted or signed for the NHL and therefore have somewhat been removed from the NHL's radar, even though they have since developed into very decent players. Or we could point to the KHL, where players might be payed more as star-players than they would as average NHL players. There are many factors to consider.

If this is to difficult, then an easy artificial way to solve the bit about unrealistic results could even be somehow rating teams differently in different competitions. Like, lets say two NHL teams play against each other and the average ability of team X is 160 while the average ability of team Y is 140. So team X is strongest and would win most matches by a couple of goals - no problem here. Then we have Canada playing Hungary at the Worlds. Canadas average might be 170 while Hungarys might be 90. The match engine could then perhaps switch to some version where this would be seen as only a 40 point difference and not a 80 point difference in order to stop unrealistic results. Anyway, I am just thinking out loud now. Just a thought :-)

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by ElQuapo

I EHM, there was a problem, that the NHL teams would sign almost every single player in the database that was good enough to play in the NHL. In order to stop all players from moving to the NHL, the European based players were made artificially bad.

No. First, the last sentence is out-and-out untrue. There was never any decision or direction to make players in Europe "artificially bad" to keep them out of the NHL. There was some re-rating after a small number of first-version European researchers wildly exceeded their ratings guidelines, turning guys like Yanick Dube and Dan Hodgson into NHL stars, but that was it.

As for the bigger issue, you've basically got the problem reversed: European leagues in EHM aren't rated too low, the NHL - specifically the lower end of its pool of players - is rated too high. The initial guidelines actually weren't that unreasonable, but there was a steady creep upwards over the years that pushed the starting CA's of third- and fourth-line quality NHLers (and all AHLers) at least 20 points higher than they should have been.

There were further issues with the prospect pools. North America was depicted in detail down as far as 14-year-olds. Those players got older and kept the Canadian and US player pools well-stocked (too well; they grew the talent level at a faster rate than the older players were declining, making the existing problem with too-high NHL CA's even worse.)

Europe's handling of youth players was far spottier; some of the researchers did good jobs with their country's prospects, but many of them basically ignored all but the highest-profile under-20's. And when Riz made a big change in the way the PA/attribute interaction during player development worked in the last version of EHM, the lack of attention the European juniors were getting kept those players from benefiting from it. The ensuing "missing generation" was a big problem because of the hole it made in the regen system; there weren't enough quality replacements for the starting group of European players.

The EHM abilities/attributes system also made it difficult to model differences in league skill levels in any way other than "XHL's players are better than YHL's," since so much was dependent on Current Ability. That led to things like the example Alessandro (KHL researcher for EHM then and FHM now) likes to bring up: Peter Worrell, whose CA (and size) made him into something close to a first-liner in EHM's KHL if he wound up there. FHM gets around that by splitting the attributes into multiple categories, each of which has a total rating that can be set independently. So now we can set ratings guidelines for the KHL that allows a group of players who are very close to the NHL in terms of offensive talent, but wind up a little weaker defensively and in goal. And an NHL goon can get the physical abilities that keep him employed in the top league in the world depicted independently of his hockey skill.

[ElQuapo]

Originally Posted by JeffR

As for the bigger issue, you've basically got the problem reversed...

Thanks for explaining it in detail :-)

Anyway, as long as the gap between the NHL and Europe is not as unrealistic as i EHM, and the NHL does not sign every single European player who is capable of 4th line duty, then I will be a happy camper :-)

[archibalduk]

Originally Posted by JeffR

FHM gets around that by splitting the attributes into multiple categories, each of which has a total rating that can be set independently. So now we can set ratings guidelines for the KHL that allows a group of players who are very close to the NHL in terms of offensive talent, but wind up a little weaker defensively and in goal. And an NHL goon can get the physical abilities that keep him employed in the top league in the world depicted independently of his hockey skill.

This for me is one of the really big features of FHM and one of the big reasons I'm really excited by this game. Of course it's early days and it's a complex game engine, but this particular feature is something that could be a very positive step forward to ensuring that the whole hockey world is more realistically rated.

Now it just falls on us researchers to ensure that we get all of the ratings correct!

[tran]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Very often? Examples of that please.

Think the Wings have done this a lot recently.
Jarnkrok, Pulkkinen, Almqvist,

[Nino33]

Originally Posted by JeffR

There was never any decision or direction to make players in Europe "artificially bad" to keep them out of the NHL....European leagues in EHM aren't rated too low, the NHL - specifically the lower end of its pool of players - is rated too high.

I created a 1974 database for EHM07, and my ratings are in line with EHM's initial guidelines, and even with the Attribute and CA/PA editing I've done the reality is pretty much every European/Russian player with even AHL level talent comes to North America - if you don't make the European/Russian players "artificially bad" they all flock to the NHL

Originally Posted by JeffR

The EHM abilities/attributes system also made it difficult to model differences in league skill levels

I've not thought this to be the problem myself, as I thought the issue was "a player cultural/personal decision" that EHM failed to model...IMO IRL many European/Russian players who would be poor-average NHLers choose to stay in Europe/Russia, while in EHM almost everyone comes to North America (regardless of contract types, adaptability, etc)

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Nino33

I created a 1974 database for EHM07, and my ratings are in line with EHM's initial guidelines, and even with the Attribute and CA/PA editing I've done the reality is pretty much every European/Russian player with even AHL level talent comes to North America - if you don't make the European/Russian players "artificially bad" they all flock to the NHL



I've not thought this to be the problem myself, as I thought the issue was "a player cultural/personal decision" that EHM failed to model...IMO IRL many European/Russian players who would be poor-average NHLers choose to stay in Europe/Russia, while in EHM almost everyone comes to North America (regardless of contract types, adaptability, etc)

OOTP has rules for leagues that say "Free Agents cannot leave league" or "No Foreigners allowed". Those same rules would correct that problem with FHM.