rainsilent

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.

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.)

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.

In my opinion once you go above a certain salary a 2 way contract should be unavailable to offer. I find it ridiculous that a 2 million dollar GHL contract can be sent down when very few players that are worth that 2 million dollar contract are not GHL quality players. I did predict player hoarding would happen.

1. West Chicago Protons (Richard "bouncer" Feynman)
OFF: 89 DEF: 93 SG: 96 OVR: 91,3
 
2. Deadwood Vandals (Kim "koekefix" Vandaele)
OFF: 89 DEF: 90 SG: 95 OVR: 89,8
 
3. Canmore Grizzlies (Matt "themattinthehat" Muffett)
OFF: 88 DEF: 91 SG: 92 OVR: 89,7
 
4. Portland Marauders (Xavier "xZhou" Zhou)
OFF: 89 DEF: 90 SG: 92 OVR: 89,7
 
5. Harrisonville Sabercats (Hurja "HurjaHerra" Herra)
OFF: 89 DEF: 89 SG: 95 OVR: 89,5
 
6. Richford Rebels (Jusu "Jusu5" Manager)
OFF: 87 DEF: 91 SG: 90 OVR: 89,4
 
7. Cedar Rapids Minutemen (Richard "rainsilent" Armour)
OFF: 87 DEF: 90 SG: 93 OVR: 88,7
 
8. Eldred Elite (Steven "sbb11578" Bennett)
OFF: 87 DEF: 90 SG: 93 OVR: 88,7
 
9. St. Thomas Stray Cats (Erzac "Erzac" Ray)
OFF: 88 DEF: 89 SG: 91 OVR: 88,7
 
10. Pascoag White Ice (Computer)
OFF: 87 DEF: 89 SG: 92 OVR: 88,3
 
11. Violet Volcano (Soupy Salez)
OFF: 86 DEF: 89 SG: 96 OVR: 88,3
 
12. Thetford Mines Pegasus (Anthony "Pingu" Grauwels)
OFF: 88 DEF: 87 SG: 95 OVR: 88,2
 
13. York Wolf Pack (Jiri "jiihee" Heikkala)
OFF: 88 DEF: 88 SG: 92 OVR: 87,8
 
14. Pinehurst Miners (Phoenix "phoenixtf" TF)
OFF: 86 DEF: 87 SG: 94 OVR: 86,9
 
15. Cuba City Tomahawks (Benoit Desvignes)
OFF: 84 DEF: 88 SG: 90 OVR: 86,5
 
16. Natashquan Mohawks (Brutality "BFGore" Fullgore)
OFF: 85 DEF: 87 SG: 94 OVR: 86,2
 
 
Calculated on day 3 of S12, using:
 
Team OVR = (OFF + (DEF x 2) + (SG x 2))/26
 
where
OFF = Combined overall of 12 best centers/forwards
DEF = Combined overall of 6 best defenders
SG = Overall of starting goalie (best overall goalie in team)

Stamkos won't hit any of them. Well ok he wont hit targets in an empty net.

I understand that it’s not very obvious what impact the player profile has, but that’s also by design. It’s not supposed to be too obvious - but at the same time obvious enough so that you can use your common hockey sense to figure things out. And as I can see in this topic so far, you’re already on the right track. However, I have been asked to give a comment on this matter and I’d be happy to. I won’t reveal any secrets but hopefully I can shed some light on this.
 First, it’s important to understand that the player profile is not only used to impact the player’s game performance. It will also influence things like team culture, happiness/unhappiness triggers, retirement age, contract negotiations and demands (including choice of team). When it comes to game performance the player profile will play an important role (it can be the difference between a win and a loss) but it will only act as an addition to the player’s original skill level. That means that if your player’s skill level is high enough it can compensate for his bad profile. But as mentioned above the profile will influence other parts of the game (culture, happiness, etc.) which in its own turn can lead to a bad game performance. Also, both high and low values can be of benefit in different situations. It’s a complex system, just like it should be. And now to RNG. As Rainsilent pointed out I don’t believe there is any good way to exclude random numbers from any game. Depending on what meaning you put into the word random I believe there’s a random factor present even in real life. A top sniper wont score 1 million goals on a 1 million shots even with an empty net. He would probably miss at least one . But I promise you this, there are NO complete random numbers in this game. All actions will be based on skill, trait or other ratings to decide if an action is a success or failure.

No, that is just Karma since I was angling for Council as well and you got him to yes sooner, haha.  
 
But seriously, I've noticed that trades do have some hidden impact on teams.  It's easy to start a downward spiral by doing multiple trades trying to fix what is wrong.  We've seen that with a few of the relegated teams over the past few seasons.  It goes from bad to worse if you aren't careful.  

And what about the opposing teams winner instinct and overall talent level? You can't just look at partial data and end up with a solid conclusion.
 
You guys are also glossing over the fact that the Marauders best players outplayed the Protons best players in the second game. I think the biggest contributor to the Marauders winning the cup is the lack of depth scoring that is going on in this patch as the two teams that had the most offensive depth, the Protons and Vandals, couldn't effectively use it to their advantage. Without that advantage it more or less became whose best players outplayed whose. Also another major factor was the starting goalie for the Protons not having full confidence. To be frank Arttur Kaila did not have a particularly good playoffs. In fact game 1 of the series he had a pretty bad game and cost the Protons the game despite the Protons otherwise completely outplaying the Marauders. I have no doubt that the lower confidence of Kaila played a role in that outcome. I also like how nobody is mentioning that they also beat me 2-1 in the first round even though Hanrahan had 2 very bad games against me.
 
Marauders congratulations on winning the cup. Against all odds you managed to win going though the best teams in the Vandals and Protons. It was fun to watch. Mostly. The first round wasn't so fun.

And what about the opposing teams winner instinct and overall talent level? You can't just look at partial data and end up with a solid conclusion.
 
You guys are also glossing over the fact that the Marauders best players outplayed the Protons best players in the second game. I think the biggest contributor to the Marauders winning the cup is the lack of depth scoring that is going on in this patch as the two teams that had the most offensive depth, the Protons and Vandals, couldn't effectively use it to their advantage. Without that advantage it more or less became whose best players outplayed whose. Also another major factor was the starting goalie for the Protons not having full confidence. To be frank Arttur Kaila did not have a particularly good playoffs. In fact game 1 of the series he had a pretty bad game and cost the Protons the game despite the Protons otherwise completely outplaying the Marauders. I have no doubt that the lower confidence of Kaila played a role in that outcome. I also like how nobody is mentioning that they also beat me 2-1 in the first round even though Hanrahan had 2 very bad games against me.
 
Marauders congratulations on winning the cup. Against all odds you managed to win going though the best teams in the Vandals and Protons. It was fun to watch. Mostly. The first round wasn't so fun.

And what about the opposing teams winner instinct and overall talent level? You can't just look at partial data and end up with a solid conclusion.
 
You guys are also glossing over the fact that the Marauders best players outplayed the Protons best players in the second game. I think the biggest contributor to the Marauders winning the cup is the lack of depth scoring that is going on in this patch as the two teams that had the most offensive depth, the Protons and Vandals, couldn't effectively use it to their advantage. Without that advantage it more or less became whose best players outplayed whose. Also another major factor was the starting goalie for the Protons not having full confidence. To be frank Arttur Kaila did not have a particularly good playoffs. In fact game 1 of the series he had a pretty bad game and cost the Protons the game despite the Protons otherwise completely outplaying the Marauders. I have no doubt that the lower confidence of Kaila played a role in that outcome. I also like how nobody is mentioning that they also beat me 2-1 in the first round even though Hanrahan had 2 very bad games against me.
 
Marauders congratulations on winning the cup. Against all odds you managed to win going though the best teams in the Vandals and Protons. It was fun to watch. Mostly. The first round wasn't so fun.

Ambition is a modifier to another talent that is now hidden that used to be visible. That talent was an indication of how good the player could be. Potential. A player with great potential but is lazy will still grow exceptionally fast. A player that doesn't have a lot of potential at all but is ambitious won't grow much at all. What you want to look for in terms of ambition is for what players are growing first then look at their ambition.
 
As for winner instinct it becomes more evident and impactful in closer leagues. Teams with higher team winner instinct will more often than not find ways to win close games. Again though that requires close games and relative parity between teams. I have never had an overly talented team offensively (defensively is another story though) yet I am regularly at the top of the standings in my league. Why? I play the odds of keeping games as close as possible and then winning those close games. If you want to see the impact of winner instinct look at all of the games that your team played where the difference was 2 or fewer goals. That said my team wins games in OT like nobody's business but can't win in a shootout to save their lives.
 
Finally dirty is about manager preference and statistical certainty. Even on the lowest aggression level your team will take penalties. It is an inevitability. So why not pick up a few players lower talented players that have the tendency to take penalties and play them on your lower lines and eat up as many PIMs as they can? Also some managers just want aggressive teams like the "Big, Bad Bruins" of old however be mindful that your team doesn't turn into the undisciplined Jets that regularly burn themselves with too many PP goals against.
 
The rest I think you have spot on although I don't really see the need for Anders to give specifics. That said somewhere in this forum is a record where he did say something along the lines that it goes on a number scale system in that not all lazy players are the same lazy. Basically think of it as a 0-10 system with 0 being most lazy for example and 1 being lazy but not as lazy and so forth.

Ambition is a modifier to another talent that is now hidden that used to be visible. That talent was an indication of how good the player could be. Potential. A player with great potential but is lazy will still grow exceptionally fast. A player that doesn't have a lot of potential at all but is ambitious won't grow much at all. What you want to look for in terms of ambition is for what players are growing first then look at their ambition.
 
As for winner instinct it becomes more evident and impactful in closer leagues. Teams with higher team winner instinct will more often than not find ways to win close games. Again though that requires close games and relative parity between teams. I have never had an overly talented team offensively (defensively is another story though) yet I am regularly at the top of the standings in my league. Why? I play the odds of keeping games as close as possible and then winning those close games. If you want to see the impact of winner instinct look at all of the games that your team played where the difference was 2 or fewer goals. That said my team wins games in OT like nobody's business but can't win in a shootout to save their lives.
 
Finally dirty is about manager preference and statistical certainty. Even on the lowest aggression level your team will take penalties. It is an inevitability. So why not pick up a few players lower talented players that have the tendency to take penalties and play them on your lower lines and eat up as many PIMs as they can? Also some managers just want aggressive teams like the "Big, Bad Bruins" of old however be mindful that your team doesn't turn into the undisciplined Jets that regularly burn themselves with too many PP goals against.
 
The rest I think you have spot on although I don't really see the need for Anders to give specifics. That said somewhere in this forum is a record where he did say something along the lines that it goes on a number scale system in that not all lazy players are the same lazy. Basically think of it as a 0-10 system with 0 being most lazy for example and 1 being lazy but not as lazy and so forth.

To add on lazy will also lose skill due to age much sooner. Lazy is only going to impact their growth potential and how soon they decline.
 
Anonymous won't hurt you pretty much at all team performance wise unless you make them captain or assistant.
 
Arrogant players will hurt team chemistry if you have too many on the team. In theory anyways.
 
Nervous will have a higher chance at a bad game the higher the pressure of the game. This said non key positions this trait doesn't matter much at all. For example 3rd/4th line wingers and 3rd pairing Dmen that otherwise aren't playing key special teams roles you want to be much more focused on the player talent fitting what you need in those specific small roles and the salary said player is asking for than if they are nervous or heroic.
 
Finally tough simply determines the standard frequency of penalties and major penalties taken.

Ambition is a modifier to another talent that is now hidden that used to be visible. That talent was an indication of how good the player could be. Potential. A player with great potential but is lazy will still grow exceptionally fast. A player that doesn't have a lot of potential at all but is ambitious won't grow much at all. What you want to look for in terms of ambition is for what players are growing first then look at their ambition.
 
As for winner instinct it becomes more evident and impactful in closer leagues. Teams with higher team winner instinct will more often than not find ways to win close games. Again though that requires close games and relative parity between teams. I have never had an overly talented team offensively (defensively is another story though) yet I am regularly at the top of the standings in my league. Why? I play the odds of keeping games as close as possible and then winning those close games. If you want to see the impact of winner instinct look at all of the games that your team played where the difference was 2 or fewer goals. That said my team wins games in OT like nobody's business but can't win in a shootout to save their lives.
 
Finally dirty is about manager preference and statistical certainty. Even on the lowest aggression level your team will take penalties. It is an inevitability. So why not pick up a few players lower talented players that have the tendency to take penalties and play them on your lower lines and eat up as many PIMs as they can? Also some managers just want aggressive teams like the "Big, Bad Bruins" of old however be mindful that your team doesn't turn into the undisciplined Jets that regularly burn themselves with too many PP goals against.
 
The rest I think you have spot on although I don't really see the need for Anders to give specifics. That said somewhere in this forum is a record where he did say something along the lines that it goes on a number scale system in that not all lazy players are the same lazy. Basically think of it as a 0-10 system with 0 being most lazy for example and 1 being lazy but not as lazy and so forth.

First one I said I think they are fine. That is my current opinion on the matter. Second I said they may (not they are but they may) be having less of an impact than intended. That isn't my opinion and rather is me saying that my opinion may be wrong on the matter. I didn't contradict myself however it appears that I didn't make what I said totally clear either. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Sports management games where you have no direct control of the players is all numbers run thus in a loose sense it is all RNG. That is what I meant by that. Yes tactics have a major say as does talent but even those have numbers behind them determining things. RNG impact in sports management games can vary wildly. From seemingly completely random (bad RNG impact on game) to ones that are actually rather predictable and are believable.
 
As for the rest I would be disappointed too in your position. You had the better team and lost. It is really disappointing when that happens. As for your struggles it is more the fact that the talent gap between your team and most of the other playoff capable teams isn't as big as it used to be just last year. As a result the games are going to be closer than your used to. It isn't that your team struggled, ok it did offensively more than it should have but the bigger, more relevant picture is you don't have that comfort margin that you had even just last year.

If you go to tactics when at your team page and then explain tactics you will find it in the player characteristics part of the description for crash the net, dump and chase and aggressive forecheck. As for what I think I think it is talking about players with high spirit and physical attributes. Maybe speed too. Kind of what you think of when you are talking real life hockey too.

If you go to tactics when at your team page and then explain tactics you will find it in the player characteristics part of the description for crash the net, dump and chase and aggressive forecheck. As for what I think I think it is talking about players with high spirit and physical attributes. Maybe speed too. Kind of what you think of when you are talking real life hockey too.

I would recommend not making a habit of unbalanced trades as it will effect your trade "reputation" in the game and it could potentially flag you after repeated occasions. But like I said, person to person interactions I wouldn't worry about...unless your "friend" is really just your own alter ego

Waivers. Anybody sent to an affiliate above say 25 goes to waivers. Anybody of the same league or below interested sends in a claim. The team highest in the claim order gets the player. Very simple and straightforward.
 
 
 
Therein lies the problem. They have to make an offer. Knowing your trading tendencies your going to want something more than a throwaway contract. Not saying that you wouldn't make a deal like that happen more that others may be doing it to try to force trades for players. You know. Gather enough players to try to force a trade or get all the quality players and then try to work deals with lower teams. It is only a bad thing to have a high league team signing all of the quality players for lower leagues no matter if they try to trade them down or not. There is no reason that a SHL team should not be able to send a waiver claim for Baroni on my team, Sharp on yours or one of the many on Pegasus who seemingly can't offer enough contracts to FAs. Nobody should be able to collect players above a certain age (again say 24 or 25) and then without care send them to their affiliates without them going through waivers.

1. St. Thomas Stray Cats (Erzac "Erzac" Ray)
OFF: 85 DEF: 85 SG: 90 OVR: 85,2
 
2. Collegeville Rhinos (BOT)
OFF: 84 DEF: 85 SG: 91 OVR: 84,9
 
3. Cuba City Tomahawks (Benoit Desvignes)
OFF: 81 DEF: 83 SG:88 OVR: 82,1
 
4. Parkville Guardians (Matthew Henke)
OFF: 81 DEF: 83 SG: 85 OVR: 82,0
 
5. Lake Viking Bulldogs (Max Mol)
OFF: 82 DEF: 81 SG: 83 OVR: 81,8
 
6. Horseheads North Thundering Herd (Bear Doggit)
OFF: 81 DEF: 82 SG: 83 OVR: 81,7
 
7. House Aristocrats (Eetu "Arkko" Arkko)
OFF: 81 DEF: 82 SG: 81 OVR: 81,7
 
8. Sault Ste Marie Admirals (Jacques de Gatinau)
OFF: 81 DEF: 82 SG: 84 OVR: 81,7
 
9. Natashquan Mohawks (Brutality "BFGore" Fullgore)
OFF: 81 DEF: 82 SG: 85 OVR: 81,4
 
10. Blakely Black Flag (Xavier "EXXEO" O'Connor)
OFF: 81 DEF: 82 SG: 82 OVR: 81,3
 
11. Wildwood Thunder Cats (Torbjörn Johansson)
OFF: 81 DEF: 80 SG: 86 OVR: 81,0
 
12. Kingston Senator Kings (Ed "Edm" Matthews)
OFF: 80 DEF: 81 SG: 80 OVR: 80,6
 
13. Webbwood Victors (Juho "Keskustankeisari" Kainulainen)
OFF: 81 DEF: 80 SG: 83 OVR: 80,4
 
14. Bodmin Bangers (Sakari Lindholm)
OFF: 80 DEF: 80 SG: 81 OVR: 79,8
 
15. Fair Play Angels (Matt Atkins)
OFF: 80 DEF: 80 SG: 80 OVR: 79,7
 
16. Wintersville Union (BOT)
OFF: 78 DEF: 77 SG: 78 OVR: 77,7
 
 
Calculated on day 5 of S11, using:
 
Team OVR = (OFF + (DEF x 2) + (SG x 2))/26
 
where
OFF = Combined overall of 12 best centers/forwards
DEF = Combined overall of 6 best defenders
SG = Overall of starting goalie (best overall goalie in team)