rainsilent

Unsigned prospects shouldn't count to the roster limit because they aren't signed onto the roster. That said the manager that has them is wasting their development potential to a degree by not signing them. As for the newly promoted teams be more aware of your players contracts. Part of the strategy of this game is being able to financially work your contracts in such a way that when you promote you still have the flexibility to adjust the roster to the new league. You over commit to your roster in the league you are in and promote there will be the penalty to pay when you promote a la all of the promotional contracts. That is because they were promotional contracts. Non promotional contracts become lower league contracts which you can then cut for free. When I unexpectedly promoted to the GHL so long ago I didn't have very many promotional contracts and could have easily cut a majority of my team when I promoted. Then again cutting players back then when not for free only lead to a lockout of half the salary for x days with x equal to the remaining seasons left under the contract.

If you remove the extra players that I have signed (young IIHL/IHL/BHL quality players unsigned at a start of a season that show promise for growth that I signed a season or two ago so they had a chance to develop) my roster is at 37. Who I would get rid of to get to 35 wouldn't be a hard decision. After this season is over if I keep this roster as is the rest of the season and stay in the GHL I will be letting go of 8 players. 35 is definitely manageable for a GHL team. A bit tight but definitely manageable.

Average age would be an interesting add.

Don't think that I am saying that there shouldn't be a roster limit. When the suggestion first came up a long time ago I said somewhere in the ballpark of 40 is where I think we should be. Too low of a roster limit and proper team building becomes nearly impossible as does sustaining your team from efforts within. Too high a limit and it might as well not be there. With around 40 you can have 5 depth players give or take a few and 10-12 prospects with some extra room left over for multiplayer trades. Edit: Also turning and burning picks means that someone somewhere is selling out their picks/prospects for a short term risk while the team benefiting is maintaining their position atop the league they are in with valuable future assets. So long as the team benefiting works the deals to maintain status que they aren't ever going to move and it will remain status quo. If you guys don't think human managers are that gullible look at the team that won the GHL in Biscuit the prior two seasons. They got human managers to give them way more value than the players they were trading away were worth and now that team is a gold mine of young players.

I didn't say that the roster limit wouldn't address it. I said that it doesn't directly address it. Introducing a roster limit does nothing to directly address player hoarding. A team could skimp on prospects and fill their entire roster space with quality players for the league they are in. Its a very indirect way of addressing the issue meaning that the actual meaningful impact it is going to have is going to be limited by each individual managers decision specifically in how much roster space they want to have for developing prospects vs hoarding quality players. For example take your limit of 10 excess players for GHL teams. If just 3 teams decides to use their complement of 10 extra roster spaces to hoard players that is 30 less GHL worthy players playing in the GHL. That pretty much leaves us where we are now in terms of player hoarding and we have essentially gone nowhere in terms of addressing player hoarding. And yes that means that said team isn't developing their current prospects but they can trade roster players or the players they are hoarding for 1st and 2nd round GHL picks depending upon the quality of players they are giving away thus it doesn't really hurt those teams in the long run anyways. The current ability to remove players off of the waivers I think was done to allow managers to remove players they accidentally placed on waivers to take them off of waivers. However you wouldn't have that option with assignment waivers, ideally anyways. Once you assign a player that meets the waiver requirements the game ideally should ask if you are sure and warns you of the risk of losing them through waivers with no chance of undoing the option. If the manager decides to assign them to an affiliate they accept the risk and the player has to go through waivers and the manager cannot remove the player from waivers.

The roster limit has to apply to all players for simplicity sake. You can't have 18-20 players not counting. Edit: ok you can but again simpler is better usually. If GHL teams have only 10 extra players they would theoretically be continuously trading prospects for picks, drafting those players and then trading them again just to stay under the roster limit. It creates a ridiculous situation. Also if it is more difficult to hoard players in the lower leagues than what is the point of the higher roster limit? I ask this in complete, genuine honesty. Finally creating a roster limit doesn't directly address the real issue with player hoarding. The fact that teams can sign players of any age and skill level and then stash them away in their affiliate system. With the roster limit it would theoretically be possible to still stash away 10 real quality players and still hoard them. What I suggested to Anders in the original hoarding thread is a much better solution because it is direct. Any player above a certain age and overall (I think 23-25 and older at say 83 overall for GHL teams is about right) that get sent to the affiliate immediately goes on waivers for x time. Only after that time is up and no team claims them will they then go to the affiliates and stay on said team. Every new season the players that are at or above the age limit go to the main roster and have to be sent to the affiliate at the start of the season to have the process repeat again unless the manager decides to keep them on the main roster to again prevent from player hoarding. Edit: Paul T it doesn't matter how much you care or not. It is important to talk about it and any other issues in the game openly. The more friendly dialogue that happens over an issue the more possible solutions that can be found. The more possible solutions that get discussed the more likely it is that a really good solution gets found. Good solution idea or not talking about issues with the game in an open and friendly manner only will go to help make the game better as issues are getting discussed which will lead to suggested fixes which will lead to improving the game. As for low player salaries yes it is a real issue but what isn't helping is the inflated overalls. I think once player overalls come back down again we can see what the salary demands are doing and go from there. That said players weren't asking enough then either so bumping up player salary demands at least a little wouldn't be a bad thing in my mind at all. After all the ideal situation is that the best teams have to deal with cap crunches and difficult decisions in who to keep and who to give away or get rid when their team is good because of quality depth.

Overall is calculated with the different skills weighted in a certain way. That means that not all are calculated equally. For example the faceoff skill might only have say a 30% weight relative to all other skills of this player when calculating overall.

A few things. 30 players is too few. That is 10 extra players total. That means your getting rid of drafted players very quickly. Too quickly. It completely prevents from building a team and sustaining it from within via through the draft. I get player hoarding is an issue but the answer is not the other extreme where sustainability is found through pot luck signings in FA. Also for simplicity sake choose a number and stick with it for every league. It makes it easier to code and for all to understand. The simpler things are to code the more likely they are to be looked at to be added into the game and the less likely they are to break and the easier they are to fix if the do break or have bugs. The easier to understand the better for all players in the game. As for hoarding players Anders is working on a fix so please be patient.

You guys find that confusing? Try having a player than when playing poorly will gain confidence but when playing well losses it.

I genuinely don't know with winner instinct.

That is an amazing statistic. Good luck in that match up. I'm cheering for you Exxeo.

In terms of team focus i change it rather regularly with mostly positive effects. Knowing how to change it and what to is the important thing. In regards to the tactics it is very possible to continuously change the team tactics to where none of them ever gets out of red and you win a lot of games however you have to precisely predict the tactics the opposing teams are going to use in each game to have any chance of success short of just having the best players by far. If the players are roughly equal and you guess wrong it is a near guarantee that you will lose with the only question being by how much. I should have replied to this when you posted. I apologize that I missed it. Team focus is more a game to game game plan thing yes. I adjust my teams focus depending upon the strengths and weaknesses of both my team and the opposing team. If the opposing team is a strong offensive team but a bit weak defensively or in net I will set my team to be more offensive as well because I have a defensive team with a strong goalie. I am willing to bet that my defense and goalie will outlast their offense better than their D and goalie can hold against mine. However if the opposing team is just better than mine (Protons) I will try to play a conservative defensive game trying to hold the score close and hope for a 1-0, 2-1 game where my team scores the last and hopefully deciding goal as I lean on my teams defense (its greatest strength) heavily to try to get a win.

That record is short term. Don't trust short term. For dump and chase you have to have a fast and physical team. My advice would be pick the style you want your team to play. The players will learn it and they will focus their training to develop the skills relevant for it faster than other skills. As for what to go for I have descriptions of the offensive tactics here: http://forums.gmgames.org/topic/6845-general-user-guide/ To help you I will repost them for you here: Offensive tactics Crash the Net: This is very simple. Puck and players to the net. In real life this isn't a tactic so much as it is a way of life. Hockey players are preached to crash the net. "Go to the net and good things will happen," "throw the puck to the net because anything could happen" and "there is no such thing as a bad shot" (there actually is) are things you commonly hear if you watch NHL games. What do you need for this tactic? Players high in the physical attribute. Bigger sized players are also a plus. The good about this tactic: You only need one skill to make it work and it is very simple. The Bad: You NEED one skill to make it work or it will not work at all, it is heavily reliant on your players to have higher physical skills and be bigger than the opposing defensemen for it to work, it is simple and very easy to counter. This tactic is the least efficient tactic out there and the most reliant on the opposing team being weak to it makes it pretty much not worth it. This tactic isn't garbage. it is just over reliant on a few things making it a very situational tactic at best. Using a situational tactic all of the time isn't exactly an ideal situation. Dump and Chase: This is all about getting the puck deep and then getting the puck via a strong forecheck. This tactic is less about skill and more about the defensive posture of the opposing team through the neutral zone. If the defensive posture is "up" then a dump and chase is a very good tactic to use. However that is in a real hockey game. What do you need for this tactic? Speed and physical skills predominantly. Like above bigger sized players are a plus. The good: This tactic is all about using your teams physical attributes to the greatest possible effect. It isn't overly reliant on puck skills. The bad: Due to the aggressive hitting nature of this tactic over aggressive players will take a lot of penalties, considering that your team will take more penalties off of the bat as it is that could really kill any momentum your team builds on a regular basis making it difficult for your team to generate much offense. This tactic is still very reliant on a players physical skill so not having a lot of forwards with high physical ratings will hurt this offense a lot. This tactic and the tactic above are the two physically focused offensive styles. The dump and chase is the more versatile of the two as it is less reliant on the opponent and their skills and more about your own players and theirs. Puck possession: This is all about controlling the puck in the opponents end by passing the puck around. This tactic is the basis of most modern hockey offenses. Even the LA Kings use a puck possession offense with a heavy influence of physical play whereas the Chicago Blackhawks use a more finesse based puck possession style. What you need: Puck handling and passing and then more puck handling and passing and then even more. The Good: This tactic is all about the puck skills of your players. This is the most difficult offense to stop with a skilled team. The bad: This is the most difficult offense to run because it is exceptionally reliant on the puck skills of your players. This tactic is very high risk high reward in nature. As a result if you don't do things right things can very easily go very wrong with this tactic. You don't need fast or physical players but that will definitely help. Transition rushes: This is all about counter attacking quickly. Get the puck and get it up ice quickly trying to create odd man rushes. However in the real life game this is not an offensive strategy per se and more another part of the game altogether. What you need: A lot of skating, passing and puck handling. The good: Very aggressive and fast offensive tactic that aims to take advantage of both the speed and skill of your players. The bad: This tactic has the most demands from the players as they need to be fast, good puck handlers and passers. Like puck possession this is high risk high reward but it is also the tactic that demands the most out of the players which demands the most out of you as well as you need the right players for this tactic to work. Also this tactic has some reliance on the opposing team as well making it that much more harder to implement successfully. Since I finally have a week off from work and life short of a sudden call from life I will be adding at least defensive descriptions this week to that after a long overdue time of not adding it. It literally takes hours to do that stuff.

The reason you saw players go from the GHL to the SHL and not get a 1 way contract is because they had a lower league contract when in the GHL. As said though when on a standard contract and traded to a lower league they will get a 1 way contract. I would think so. I've never seen this happen and the only thing I can think of is you resigned him and his new contract had that. However you don't say that you did so I don't know.

First a waiver system is coming to allow lower league managers to claim players. How exactly it will work I don't know. That said I did call at the outset that overly greedy managers would abuse the affiliate system. Second there is a right way to find and go after players for an affiliate system. Its simple. Wait until the end of FA and then go after any FA not being offered a contract by lower league teams that you have interest in. It allows other teams (most importantly lower league teams) to go after FAs that they may actually need.

3 forwards are on the block for me. Chattillon, Eger and Grieveau-Brisjoly. Looking for picks, prospects or 3rd/4th line forwards in return.

In the affiliate they train as hard as you set them to. The problem is that injuries stagnates training while the player is hurt. Combine that with players on affiliate teams regularly getting fatigued due to the combination of hard training and a lack of managing minutes and I don't doubt that fatigue injuries happen a bit more often than we would like in the affiliates. Hence me mentioning those pros and cons.

A few quick pros and cons. Pros: Player gets to play in a controlled environment rather than random one in minor system. Potential for fatigue injuries reduced (especially for goalies.) Cons: Would have to be limited to players able to be sent down. Lower league teams could forgo signing players and building a team and just go to loan players (could be a loan limit of say 5 players per team.)

Oh dear god please no. That said I would like to see suspensions for major penalties that aren't fights.

Wins and games played.

Fatigue is the biggest factor there. Luck goes with injuries too but the more fatigued a player is the more likely they are to getting hurt. Example from the last season for me. My top 2 D I let get to exhausted and yellow fatigue respectively. Once I realized that was happening I "gave the night off" to the exhausted one for the upcoming game. The other one got hurt. Since training will fatigue a player you have to balance high training with time on ice to prevent them getting tired. This will go a fair way into preventing injuries. You still will get them as you can't avoid all of them but this reduces the chances of individual players getting hurt.

I've seen some players play worse while others seem to not care. Then again this isn't ever the only factor at play. I would say concerned has a rather small impact whereas frustrated has a bigger, more relevant one.

Not 6. Just 3 for me. This is year 1 of 3 of the transition to younger forwards. After this year I will have 2 forwards whose expiring contracts will not be renewed. The next season 3 more at least. That means that I will be going from 9 29+ forwards to just 4 in 2 seasons time. Never mind that they are mostly players that have either been mainstays of my roster or otherwise largely play some bigger roles on the team. Replacing them wont be easy but it will have to happen sooner or later and I am hoping that a few of these young forwards will manage to grow into what I need.

My team is starting to go through what will be a multi year transition as the forward group gets younger and older players get released. It will be interesting to see how much of a fall off there is for my team in terms of results.

I know I data mine the players a lot for fun but I never went into national team stuff. It will be very interesting to see how the national teams look in 2-3 seasons when the 33+ overall players aren't there anymore. And great job to all that looked this stuff up to make the teams.