EXXEO

I think it's all intended. It stems from a reduction in training that occurred in a previous update that reduced player development to make it more realistic from top to bottom. This year's top prospects look a lot different than seasons prior as well as only the top few picks really stand out in the crowd of prospects. I assume that as the slower leagues progress it will be seen on that playing field also. Overall, I'm all for it - just may take some time for everything to plane out.

I wanted to wait until a few things got worked out with the trade system but now that CPU trades are more stringent I think this may be a good time to suggest it. I like the idea of being able to offer up two seasons worth of draft picks. I think that opens the floor up for a lot of different trade options and could make manager interactions more in depth. For instance; player loans would be easier to negotiate having the option to offer up a next season 3rd round pick etc. Let me know what you guys think.

I have just updated my Tradeblock. I'm selling a lot of talent to get a more focused roster. If you have any interest in them or even players that are 'unknown' shoot me a PM

I suggest that game should have search agent which send you a message if player maching your filters is set to waivers, released or set to tradeblock. Otherwise assist could inform manager if interested player listed to waivers. This way we get probably more traffic for waived players.

Would it be possible to add a shootout lineup option into the mix?

So, I'm going to keep track of the two goalies that I mentioned earlier and we're going to see how they develop and track progress until the draft, giving an update on day 20, 40, and 60. Then we can see exactly who decides to take which player and follow their progress from there. This should be interesting as the higher ranked, Higher rating goalie, Lanza, has statistics that are far less impressive than the 2nd ranked goalie, Vignaux.
 
Name / SOY OVR (+ Progress) / Games Played / GAA / SP / Shutouts
 
MATCH 1:
Lanza / 89 (+0) / 12 / 3.38 / .908 / 1
Vignaux / 84 (+0) / 11 / 1.27 / .952 / 4

"As for the focus, I have heard conflicting opinions on this as well, all from successful managers. So I guess it's more a matter of preference. Although I don't know if this information was ever available as part of the "Hints" section that was removed long before I joined."
 
I agree, that I've heard the same as well. I really think a lot of this boils down to individual preferences etc. For instance, I tend to run a Two Way, PowerForward, and Playmaker on my Two Way lines. I've found that on occasion an entire line could be effected by one of these players not gelling with the others. Likewise, I've found that the one that is performing the worst, when changed, makes the entire team more cohesive. It's more complex than I give it credit for.
 
As for your comments on how long tactic changes take to get to a full bar, I may agree with a 20-25 game stretch a bit more as well. I am curious as to whether or not the average age of your team (experience) defines how quickly that bar changes.

I am going to add a little to this idea - there are times when one of my teams get an injury that we actually find a way to get a win but more often than not we lose. I think part of that is that it opens up wide the chances of dysfunction occurring on that line thus leading to more scoring opportunities for the opponent. In addiction to adding a SO lineup, could there just be a depth chart option? I like the idea of limiting the active roster to 23 (giving the GM a bench C,F, and D slot). Then for each line you could set who would be the secondary fill person in the case of an injury. While the bench players may not gain a ton of experience on the ice they would still get an added boost for just being present with the active roster (that's all theoretical).

I've seen players says that they have no injury issues but my top line C went down for 10 days yesterday and one of my guysbin Biscuit send down for 9 days today. Hmm...

I am going to add a little to this idea - there are times when one of my teams get an injury that we actually find a way to get a win but more often than not we lose. I think part of that is that it opens up wide the chances of dysfunction occurring on that line thus leading to more scoring opportunities for the opponent. In addiction to adding a SO lineup, could there just be a depth chart option? I like the idea of limiting the active roster to 23 (giving the GM a bench C,F, and D slot). Then for each line you could set who would be the secondary fill person in the case of an injury. While the bench players may not gain a ton of experience on the ice they would still get an added boost for just being present with the active roster (that's all theoretical).

Our day today following beating the (former) #1 Team yesterday:
 
We played on the road today against the worst team in the league who had 0 wins to their name. To be safe I left my best goalie in at net to ensure no weird upset would occur. In the 2nd my team Captain (24YO, 6'1", 194 lbs) gets into a fight...and loses to a 40 year old 5'10", 170 Lb. guy! Despite the humiliation my Captain puts us up by 1 ending the 2nd period.
 
Then it happens...an injury to my veteran 3rd liner. No big deal right? Immediately following that we tank and have 3 straight goals dumped on us and can't seem to score another despite having almost every statistical advantage at the end of the match...bah! To make matters worse, one of my old goalies that we departed with gets the first win for the opponent for the season. What a flaming bag of poo!

I am going to add a little to this idea - there are times when one of my teams get an injury that we actually find a way to get a win but more often than not we lose. I think part of that is that it opens up wide the chances of dysfunction occurring on that line thus leading to more scoring opportunities for the opponent. In addiction to adding a SO lineup, could there just be a depth chart option? I like the idea of limiting the active roster to 23 (giving the GM a bench C,F, and D slot). Then for each line you could set who would be the secondary fill person in the case of an injury. While the bench players may not gain a ton of experience on the ice they would still get an added boost for just being present with the active roster (that's all theoretical).

Our day today following beating the (former) #1 Team yesterday:
 
We played on the road today against the worst team in the league who had 0 wins to their name. To be safe I left my best goalie in at net to ensure no weird upset would occur. In the 2nd my team Captain (24YO, 6'1", 194 lbs) gets into a fight...and loses to a 40 year old 5'10", 170 Lb. guy! Despite the humiliation my Captain puts us up by 1 ending the 2nd period.
 
Then it happens...an injury to my veteran 3rd liner. No big deal right? Immediately following that we tank and have 3 straight goals dumped on us and can't seem to score another despite having almost every statistical advantage at the end of the match...bah! To make matters worse, one of my old goalies that we departed with gets the first win for the opponent for the season. What a flaming bag of poo!

My Clapper team's. Problem is that I can't make ANY moves due to two things. First, one big contract did not shrink to SHL cap leaving me in a drastic hole And the other is what seems to be a glitch that still has a massive amount of money locked up in trade offers that can't dissolve. While I was sent a message that all my trades were no longer in tact, they ,in fact, do show up on the transfer page. Mike Ciccone (Colome Knights) even messaged me to see if I could cancel the pending contract because he couldn't. So neither sides of the offer can decline or cancel causing a cap deduction...in my case -$7+ Million

Oh man… I think I just experienced the worst of all statistics which lead my team to relegation . After defeating the outlaws 6 to 1 in the first game, game two and three just look absurd. During game 2 and 3 we outshot their team and during the 6-1 victory we were outshot.. In fact, in game 2 they only put up 15 shots between the last two periods. It doesn't help that my top rated Defenseman got injured during Game 2 but when you look at the team overall ranking in PP and PK it makes me scratch my head how game 3 ended. The end of season stats has our team at #9 in PP and #1 in PK.
 
Game 3 started with us going up 2-0 but then by the second finding ourselves all tied up. We take the lead, 3-2, in the 3rd but what follows is strange. We hadn't let the Outlaws score a single PP goal in the previous two games and I can't remember the last time my PP has let in a SHG (in the regular season). They get a PP goal to tie it up and then get a SHG to win the series...seriously?

I wanted to wait until a few things got worked out with the trade system but now that CPU trades are more stringent I think this may be a good time to suggest it. I like the idea of being able to offer up two seasons worth of draft picks. I think that opens the floor up for a lot of different trade options and could make manager interactions more in depth. For instance; player loans would be easier to negotiate having the option to offer up a next season 3rd round pick etc. Let me know what you guys think.

There has been some discussion about this topic in the chat box here and figured it may be a good subject to hash out a bit more. The idea is to try and better engage the community. I really enjoy the chat box in top of the page here and think it would be great to see it in a similar format that sits on top of the browser rather than in the manager tabs. I know there were other ideas discussed as well so please throw those in here too.

Is here anyway we could see a few more details as to what certain simulations are? For instance, I have like 8 offers out to managers right now and due to relegation I'm a bit stressed out because I'm afraid my top guys may just suddenly disappear - POOF! and then there goes my chance at getting anything in return.
 
Boy this sucks...it won't be done simulating for 30 minutes, which means my guys may be long gone before any manager can react

I've noticed in both Clapper and Biscuit a bit of an odd trend. In both leagues there have been several matches that I have won and lost that leave me scratching my head in confusion. The box score will show a 100% lopsided advantage to one team and by all guessing you would assume that the team with all the best stats would most likely be the winner. Not the case. I saw a match recently where a team put up early 50 shots and still lost to a team who put up half the number of shots and were stuck in their defensive zone for nearly 65% of the match. I have seen games like this previously but feel as if it has been the norm this season. Once more, I'm not complaining necessarily because my #14 Clapper team beat one of the top seeded teams recently on a match just like this but I don't know if I agree with how often a match like that can happen.
 
As additional info, on many games that we lose and have a high percentage of positive stats, my entire team will play in the green or blue and my goalie will post something like a 55 performance. I rest my goalies well and find that kind of a strange dip in performance rather odd, especially after he had just came off the bench from resting the last game and the entire team was killing it.
 
Any one else seeing this?

I like the control aspect quite a bit. It's so dang hard to monitor fitness in the Affiliate leagues and I would gladly hand off my better prospects to train in a controlled environment where they could potentially train harder and retain health.

Over the past several seasons Pingu and I have developed a great interactive set of transactions. We have recently even made a few three way trades from the BHL up to the GHL. It's been rather fun. Our newest endeavor is diving into the talks of player loans. In Biscuit, I'm in the SHL and he is in the GHL and so to offer up a draft pick to give a developing GHL prospect extra experience and my team to get a temporary top notch player...well it makes sense for both of us. The hard part is trust at the moment. While we have developed a good working relationship and trust, not everyone would be apt to send down a great prospect to not be sure if they'd get them back the next season.
 
All this to say - what if in our trade options we have a box that we could check that would make a loan possible. For instance let's say Pingu wants to send a goalie prospect down for a season to develop with my team and wants to make sure he does get returned, then he could check the loan box and it would already schedule a return on day 77...or whatever the term would be. You could also designate players for loan in the player transfer options to let other managers know who would be potentially available.
 
The two things I foresee needing to be worked out/necessary would be to make it only Manager to Manager and not allow the CPU to be involved with it - just too many weird situations to sift through. The second would be how the trade fairness bars would see a loan rather than a direct trade. I feel as if both teams win on a loan so a first round pick wouldn't make as much sense to me to be on par with the player on loan as they would only be there for a season.
 
Let me know if you see any other openings for expanding this

Yup, a solid re-brand could bring in more fans and coax interested players to join your squad - ha!
 
A fan base would be an interesting aspect to the game

Talk about stuff here

I wanted to wait until a few things got worked out with the trade system but now that CPU trades are more stringent I think this may be a good time to suggest it. I like the idea of being able to offer up two seasons worth of draft picks. I think that opens the floor up for a lot of different trade options and could make manager interactions more in depth. For instance; player loans would be easier to negotiate having the option to offer up a next season 3rd round pick etc. Let me know what you guys think.