ECHL - Players Automatically Released

johntherev · 02-28-2021, 07:17 PM

I am Head Coach/GM in the ECHL with settings set to "All Human". I am mid-playoffs and my affiliates sent down two players on an off day. During the sim, this led to a cascading effect where four players were sent down from my team to the US SW Semi-Pro (not the end of the world), AND four players I had contracted were released. There's no roster cap due to the playoffs so I don't know what cap/trigger I might be breaking to have those releases happen.

JeffR · 03-01-2021, 02:21 AM

It shouldn't be doing that automatically, it should just give you an error message so you have to make whatever fixes are necessary yourself. Could you upload that save (instructions here) so we can take a look and see what went wrong there?

johntherev · 03-01-2021, 12:10 PM

Done, thanks!

spacemanbobs · 06-17-2021, 10:04 PM

Did this issue ever get solved? I'm dealing with the same thing and it's getting to the point where the ECHL is almost unplayable.

JeffR · 06-17-2021, 11:56 PM

It may not necessarily be the same thing the original poster was seeing, we fixed a couple of issues with AI handling of second-level affiliate rosters during the year. If you can upload the save, we can have a look and may be able to fix it for you.

Pez2385 · 06-19-2021, 01:23 AM

I didn't want to start a new thread since it seems this is an ongoing issue.

I'm on my third ECHL season (playing GM mode only) and I had signed a bunch of decent players for my team. I simmed one week (16-23 Aug) and when I came back, I had messages stating a few players were sent down to me from the upper teams (which I understand) and my team went from 22 players to 17. However, of those 17 remaining, only 8 players were ones I had signed; 5 were brought up from the CSP league (my worst signings); the game released 9 players I had signed, which of course are my better players. All 'roster moves' and 'transactions' are set to me as the GM.

I was not over the cap and am now considerably less than the cap. My team is mostly made up of 25 year olds and younger. I now don't have a full team and cannot re-sign any of those that were just released because they are mad (rightfully so).

As spacemanbobs said above, ECHL is practically unplayable. Throughout the season roster changes happen without me knowing. I'll constantly have to call up a player on consecutive games because the game sends them down with no rhyme or reason.

Please help. I'm enjoying the game, but this is absolutely frustrating.

JeffR · 06-20-2021, 04:57 AM

The problem is mainly with the AHL-ECHL affiliations. The AHL signs players if it needs them, but they're at the mercy of their NHL parent - if the parent sends a lot of players down, the AHL team then has to do something with their own players, and if they have an ECHL affiliate, that's where it's going to stash them until it needs them again, without regard to the ECHL's teams needs. We've looked at limiting the number of players that can be sent down or having the AI take its affiliate's situation into account, but the former is likely to lead to a lot of untenable roster situations for the parent, and the latter exponentially complicates AI roster management.

Removing those affiliations entirely would be an obvious solution, but not a very realistic one and would probably lead to a lot of odd player movement. Allowing a single affiliation to be removed/suspended if a human is controlling the ECHL team is an alternative, but has its own complications, particularly if the user takes the ECHL job in mid-game. The best option I can think of right now is allowing a human-run farm team to terminate the contracts of players it gets assigned by a parent (essentially, just let them do what can be done via commissioner mode editing right now.) It's an ugly solution, but at least gives the user a quick way out of the roster problems created by the parent team.

For the moment, the easiest way around it is just using commissioner mode to edit any excess players the AHL team sends you to free agency. If you're in challenge mode and commissioner mode can't be turned on, you can cheat your way around it by doing the following.

1. Create a new standard game, but don't choose Challenge Mode.
2. Make a backup copy of the game_settings.dat file in your existing save.
3. Copy the game_settings.dat file in the newly-created game to the existing save.
4. Open the save, go to the Manager Options screen, and turn Commissioner mode on (it'll be available, since the game is technically no longer in Challenge Mode.)
5. Once commissioner mode is on, use that to remove any players the parent team has sent to you that you don't want (make them free agents - if you put them back on the AHL team they'll just get sent down again.)
6. When finished, turn commissioner mode off and exit and save the game.
7. Delete the current game_settings.dat file.
8. Rename the backup you created in Step 2 above to game_settings.dat.
9. Load the game, verify that commissioner mode is off, then exit and save again.
10. Restart and reload, and you'll be back in challenge mode.
(if you don't care about staying in challenge mode, you can omit steps 6-10.)

Alles · 06-21-2021, 05:41 AM

Can't you just remove/expand active roster cap for the ECHL teams? I think in this situation fun is more important than realism.

JeffR · 06-22-2021, 12:56 AM

I may experiment with that as well, but I suspect the combination of a large roster and a fairly low cap will cause issues for the AI-run teams.

Alles · 06-23-2021, 10:24 AM

Maybe teams can have a protected list of 20 players or something. Signing/releasing players will also affect protected list. In this case teams wont be able to sign a lot of players, but will be able to have unlimited active roster for parent teams players. Not sure if its possible on code level.

02-28-2021, 07:17 PM	#1
johntherev Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2021 Posts: 2	ECHL - Players Automatically Released I am Head Coach/GM in the ECHL with settings set to "All Human". I am mid-playoffs and my affiliates sent down two players on an off day. During the sim, this led to a cascading effect where four players were sent down from my team to the US SW Semi-Pro (not the end of the world), AND four players I had contracted were released. There's no roster cap due to the playoffs so I don't know what cap/trigger I might be breaking to have those releases happen.

06-19-2021, 01:23 AM	#6
Pez2385 Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 1	Same Problem I didn't want to start a new thread since it seems this is an ongoing issue. I'm on my third ECHL season (playing GM mode only) and I had signed a bunch of decent players for my team. I simmed one week (16-23 Aug) and when I came back, I had messages stating a few players were sent down to me from the upper teams (which I understand) and my team went from 22 players to 17. However, of those 17 remaining, only 8 players were ones I had signed; 5 were brought up from the CSP league (my worst signings); the game released 9 players I had signed, which of course are my better players. All 'roster moves' and 'transactions' are set to me as the GM. I was not over the cap and am now considerably less than the cap. My team is mostly made up of 25 year olds and younger. I now don't have a full team and cannot re-sign any of those that were just released because they are mad (rightfully so). As spacemanbobs said above, ECHL is practically unplayable. Throughout the season roster changes happen without me knowing. I'll constantly have to call up a player on consecutive games because the game sends them down with no rhyme or reason. Please help. I'm enjoying the game, but this is absolutely frustrating.

03-01-2021, 02:21 AM	#2
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 17,378	It shouldn't be doing that automatically, it should just give you an error message so you have to make whatever fixes are necessary yourself. Could you upload that save (instructions here) so we can take a look and see what went wrong there?

03-01-2021, 12:10 PM	#3
johntherev Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2021 Posts: 2	Done, thanks!

06-17-2021, 10:04 PM	#4
spacemanbobs Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 1	Did this issue ever get solved? I'm dealing with the same thing and it's getting to the point where the ECHL is almost unplayable.

06-17-2021, 11:56 PM	#5
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 17,378	It may not necessarily be the same thing the original poster was seeing, we fixed a couple of issues with AI handling of second-level affiliate rosters during the year. If you can upload the save, we can have a look and may be able to fix it for you.

06-20-2021, 04:57 AM	#7
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 17,378	The problem is mainly with the AHL-ECHL affiliations. The AHL signs players if it needs them, but they're at the mercy of their NHL parent - if the parent sends a lot of players down, the AHL team then has to do something with their own players, and if they have an ECHL affiliate, that's where it's going to stash them until it needs them again, without regard to the ECHL's teams needs. We've looked at limiting the number of players that can be sent down or having the AI take its affiliate's situation into account, but the former is likely to lead to a lot of untenable roster situations for the parent, and the latter exponentially complicates AI roster management. Removing those affiliations entirely would be an obvious solution, but not a very realistic one and would probably lead to a lot of odd player movement. Allowing a single affiliation to be removed/suspended if a human is controlling the ECHL team is an alternative, but has its own complications, particularly if the user takes the ECHL job in mid-game. The best option I can think of right now is allowing a human-run farm team to terminate the contracts of players it gets assigned by a parent (essentially, just let them do what can be done via commissioner mode editing right now.) It's an ugly solution, but at least gives the user a quick way out of the roster problems created by the parent team. For the moment, the easiest way around it is just using commissioner mode to edit any excess players the AHL team sends you to free agency. If you're in challenge mode and commissioner mode can't be turned on, you can cheat your way around it by doing the following. 1. Create a new standard game, but don't choose Challenge Mode. 2. Make a backup copy of the game_settings.dat file in your existing save. 3. Copy the game_settings.dat file in the newly-created game to the existing save. 4. Open the save, go to the Manager Options screen, and turn Commissioner mode on (it'll be available, since the game is technically no longer in Challenge Mode.) 5. Once commissioner mode is on, use that to remove any players the parent team has sent to you that you don't want (make them free agents - if you put them back on the AHL team they'll just get sent down again.) 6. When finished, turn commissioner mode off and exit and save the game. 7. Delete the current game_settings.dat file. 8. Rename the backup you created in Step 2 above to game_settings.dat. 9. Load the game, verify that commissioner mode is off, then exit and save again. 10. Restart and reload, and you'll be back in challenge mode. (if you don't care about staying in challenge mode, you can omit steps 6-10.)

06-21-2021, 05:41 AM	#8
Alles Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 88	Can't you just remove/expand active roster cap for the ECHL teams? I think in this situation fun is more important than realism.

06-22-2021, 12:56 AM	#9
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 17,378	I may experiment with that as well, but I suspect the combination of a large roster and a fairly low cap will cause issues for the AI-run teams.

06-23-2021, 10:24 AM	#10
Alles Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2021 Posts: 88	Maybe teams can have a protected list of 20 players or something. Signing/releasing players will also affect protected list. In this case teams wont be able to sign a lot of players, but will be able to have unlimited active roster for parent teams players. Not sure if its possible on code level.