Wick Schozen

Is an explanation of player attributes and their effects on the game going to be assessed? For instance I don’t have a great grasp on spirit but it does seem to have a very large impact on how players perform regardless of their other abilities.

It is indeed. Thanks for your help Anders

Sorry for the misunderstanding but just to clarify on my end. So even though it shows no contract extension for him, the previous signed contract extension will take effect next season? Because for me to sign him now his contract is going to be double the amount he was previously signed to.

Nope, he still does not have his signed contract reinstated

My players contract extension from last season has still not been reenacted and is instead a 21 year old still on an entry level contract. This is clearly a bug

For the exact reason that the system we have no works in that there is no guarantee the relegated team will win the SHL and get the top pick the next draft. The relegated team has to have a competent manager that can retool and succeed the next season to get the top pick, thus incentivising success. There is a success in winning the SHL and being promoted, that should be incentivised. There is a success in avoiding relegation from the GHL and staying in the league, that should be incentivised with a high draft pick. There is no success in being the worst team in your league resulting in relegation and it should not be rewarded as that would be incentivising failure.

I get what your saying and it looks appealing in that outline. The thing I get stuck on with this is once you extrapolate that to five seasons out the GHL is essentially 34 teams with the top 6 teams in the SHL being former GHL teams that have been going up and down and the remaining 22 SHL teams could never possibly accumulate talent to be able to compete with those teams.

The point that Wendel made about prohibiting the trading of picks between leagues is the best solution to the abusable system. Removing the promotion-relegation pick switch is not, because the team relegating has the best chance to return to the GHL. They have the ability to retain a roster of GHL players on two-way deals, there is absolutely no reason to give that team the best prospect entering the game world. What is a reason to award a team with the best prospect entering the game world is the team at the greatest disadvantage which is the team that just succeeded in promoting. Give them the asset so then they can cultivate a team of GHL assets and attempt to stay in the league and if they can't compete then they have to be competent managers and better situate themselves for success further down the line. You cannot incentivise failure in a relegation/promotion league structure by allowing that team to retain a top draft selection because then no team in a lower division has any possibility of breaking through to the top. Eventually the top assets will just be circulated amongst GHL teams and the handful of teams that sit at the top of the SHL promoting and relegating season after season.

The logic on the exchanging of picks is to give the promoting team the best asset that is being inserted into the league by means of one of the top players drafted. If the relegating team were to receive that pick, then the promoting team would not only be coming into a higher league with a constrained roster, but also with a draft selection that no longer offers value to the league they now compete in. It's understandably difficult in implementation because there is no relegation system in any sporting landscape that has a draft, but I think Anders has done quite a good job with this system. The relegating team should not be provided with "something to be happy about" because in a competitive league structure they failed and their position within the league was replaced. Now in fairness they actually do have something to build upon. If the relegating team prepared for the possibility of relegation or they were in a situation where they were guaranteed to relegate they still have a far greater foundation to build upon than any SHL team they will be competing against the next season. And that foundation is a roster of GHL players (we'll use GHL for this example, but this logic will apply to any division for a relegating team) that the team could utilize to trade for assets that can be retained after being relegating. This can be done by acquiring players on two-way deals, prospects or draft picks. Coming from the position of all GHL quality assets, that is a far better position of building for the future than any SHL team, even those promoting that will switch draft selections with the relegating team. This part I feel I am well equipped to comment on because I think it might be in reference to what I did. To be clear, it is not easy to gain promotion picks for three reasons. The first is that team that is in a guaranteed position to promote is not going to be interested in acquiring a bunch of players from a GHL team for their certain top pick. They have no incentive to trade their draft pick away for players they will have the ability to sign so almost always those teams would turn down a trade for their 1st or 2nd round picks. The second reason a promotion pick isn't easy to obtain is that the teams that would be willing to trade their potential promotion pick is not guaranteed to promote. So the team from the higher division that trades with that team is gambling that it pays off otherwise they have given up GHL level assets for a late SHL 1st or 2nd round pick. That's bad asset management and if done continuously will deplete a team. Finally the third reason it's not easy to do is SHL managers dictate whether they want to give up the pick. If the manager feels their roster is good enough to promote they will hold onto the picks. If they don't, they have to make the judgement of whether they receive more value in the players they acquire to be able to promote than what they will get out of the promotion picks. So to your question of what are you missing it's the end of your question before that of "their picks become crazy worth". If the team doesn't promote then no one would bat an eye, only the GHL manager would probably know his gamble fell short. The easiness of it is entirely hingent on it actually working out for the team that gave up assets for them. A lot of the times it doesn't. It's reliant on the manager of the SHL team desiring promoting over drafting a top player. Something a lot would not be willing to do. Losing a GHL pick upon relegation is not why most managers quit. Why I think most managers quit (I'll admit this is about to be a very loose assessment) is because they didn't have a long term plan for how they were going to build their team in a promotion/relegation league structure. So when they do relegate because of this they don't find the prospect of trying to rebuild their team to get back to where they were enjoyable. Wick

My player (https://gameplanhockey.com/player?gpid=664-A) had a longterm contract extension heading into day one of season three in Buzzer. On the first day his contract on the transfers tab on the team overview remained "1+8" so I assumed it had not transferred over from the previous season yet. Checked today and his entry level deal is still in place for another year despite him being 21 and having a contract extension. Game world: Buzzer Team: Warman Aussies

Thanks Anders. Can you also allude as to how spirit and endurance are improved?

My 4th overall pick is available for the possibility of trading down in the draft. Send me a direct message if interested.

Posing this question because I am not exactly sure how to train specific attributes. Spirit and endurance are the ones I am most unsure of but I was reading another tread that proposed some basic idea of which training settings trains what particular attributes. I would like one of the developers to have some input on this. If this game is attempting to be realistic there should not be confusion on how to develop your players. As in real life if a player in an organization had a clear deficiency they would focus on developing that area of the players game. Player development should not be a trial and error procedure when we only have three criteria of player training. Does offensive training target: Speed, passing, puck control and shooting. Does defensive training target: Defense, physicality, spirit and endurance. Is general training an even distribution of all attributes? Again, when skill development in real life is a concise and deliberate initiative it should not be a guessing game.

Was pushing this about a year ago for prospect development. One thing that used to baffle me was players would be playing out of position. I'd have top defensemen prospects playing as centers because they were the highest overall on my affiliate while my center prospects were playing wing. As far as I'm aware the only way to improve faceoff rating is by the player taking a high volume of faceoffs. So my centermen would always be left in my affiliate longer because I could get them almost 800 faceoffs in the minors as opposed to only 300 when playing in my bottom six. As for players getting stuck behind bums in your affiliate. If you have the ability to create a second affiliate I'd be sending the older players to the bottom affiliate while having only top prospects on the top affiliate. That allowed my top prospects to all get top 6/top 4 minutes.

The way I look at it with a simulation game is that it's all about odds (albeit without knowing how it is weighted). I feel that the tactics you choose improve the baseline that your players are able to best utilize there attributes. So even if your team may be better at a different tactic, if you switch to it your team will not be familiar with it and not receive any bonus to their play for it. I don't know for certain but I don't think the advantage of having a tactical advantage over your opponents system although without any familiarity would have the same benefit of getting a bonus for familiarity yet not in the capacity that your team would excel in. So for the question of just one day left I would leave it every time. Now if the other team had an absolute advantage against your team tactically then that would be a whole other question. Because maybe switching to what counteracts your opponents tactics could offset the advantage they have to where it is now just whos player perform better on the day. Still though, in a simulation game of weighted odds in which randomness has a large factor I don't think we can get a difinitive answer without knowing how it is weighted (which would ruin the fun). Wick

That game you're referring to hockey arena by any chance?

Ended up having eight ballots total. Submissions improved by one ballot, but there were two managers that sent in ballots last season that didn't submit them this time around. With eight ballots though at least we had half of the league represented this time.

The only factor I have seen that influences faceoff training is the amount taken in game. Before the update where the development of a player in the minors was reduced if he felt he was too good for the affiliate team I had my stud center prospect down there and he was averaging something like 15 faceoffs a game. He made drastic improvements that season and it makes sense because wingers don't take faceoffs so that doesn't develop and if you look at the stats of a center with low faceoff ratings I guarantee you he averaged less than 10 faceoffs a game with his junior team.

Player Awards: Top Forward: Pasi Eskola - Forest Park Lumberjacks (4) The leagues leading point scorer with 62 points takes out this seasons top forward award. Eskola with four votes beat out last years winner of the award Alexandr Gavrikov who came in second with two votes. Season 23 saw Pasi Eskola set a new career high in both goals and points. An achievement even more impressive when done on a non-playoff team. Top Defensemen: Pedar Andreasen - Burnside Bombers (5) Pedar Andreasen was the talk of the year for the first half of the season. Andreasen’s breakout year had him lead all defensemen in points and finish 6th in overall league scoring. With five votes Andreasen takes home the top defensemen award handedly over last years recipient Dalibor Kosegi who finished with two votes. Top Goaltender: Thor Landstrom - Stony Brook Steel (5) There’s no split decision this year. After sharing the award in season 22 Thor Landstrom wins the Top Goaltender award for the second straight season. Landstrom's save percentage of .929 was second in the league even with the second largest workload of any goaltender playing 2674 minutes. This is also while receiving the fifth most shots against, there is no doubting that Landstrom had his work cut out for him to retain Top Goaltender. Most Outstanding Player: Pedar Andreasen - Burnside Bombers (5) Along with receiving Top Defensemen honours, Pedar Andreasen was voted the Most Outstanding Player of Season 23. One of three new categories to the ballot this year, Andreasen is crowned with the most impressive performance of all players for this year. The hulking 6’7 defender, taken outside of the top 10 at 11th overall at the season 18 draft has developed in a game breaker for the Burnside Bombers. Spending most of the year leading all players in points, it wasn’t until the last quarter of the season that forwards were able to catch up to his production. Most Desirable Player To Build A Team Around: Anir Vigneault - Newcastle Fighters (3) Goaltender Anir Vigneault takes out the Cornerstone Award for season 23, narrowly edging out the emerging star center Filips Birznieks. Vigneault, 24 years old, has consistently finished in the top 5 for save percentage since entering the league in season 17. Finishing 5th in save percentage this season and having the leagues best save percentage in Season 20, Vigneault’s size, age and intangibles endeared him to voters this season. Best Under 21: Artem Belyakov - Pittsboro Predators (3) Artem Belyakov is the first recipient of the Best Under 21 award. With the intent of highlighting the top up and coming player the first overall pick from the Season 20 draft helped guide the Pittsboro Predators to their second consecutive appearance in the GHL playoffs posting 36 points from the blueline. While this is his last year of eligibility of the award his previous performances of 40 points as an 18 year old and 35 at 19 years of age could have seen him sweep this award since his debut into the league. Belyakov with have to settle with being the inaugural recipient of the award before he ages out of contention. First Overall Consensus of Previous Draft: Dylan Diop - Goderich Goblins (6) There was little deliberation with who the top choice of last season draft was. Dylan Diop who was selected first overall retains that opinion at the end of his first season in the league. The 18 year old centerman transitioned into the GHL well putting up 28 points. At 6’4 and displaying maturity beyond his years Diop looks like the real deal as he looks to be the cornerstone of the Goderich Goblins who narrowly missed the playoffs this year in only their second season in the GHL. Manager Opinions: Most Important Position: Goaltender (4) Goaltending is still the most valued position by the GHL managers receiving the highest number of votes for the second straight season. Only one team got into the playoffs without a goaltender ranked in the top 8 for save percentage and the play of Daniel Crapper almost propelling Goderich into the playoffs, there is a clear correlation between team success and the performance of their goaltender. What Team Will Win The Most Cups Over The Next 10 Seasons? Stony Brook (4) Stony Brook again is considered to be the best contending team for the next 10 Seasons. Stony Brook is chasing down their third consecutive GHL cup and fourth in five seasons. Unless Stony Brooks is hit with a flood, the GHL cup doesn’t look to be in any hurry to leave the grips of that town. What Team Will Need To Rebuild In The Next 5 Seasons? Burnside (3) The Burnside Bombers have enjoyed at healthy run in the GHL with either a 4th or 5th place finish for the last seven seasons. The voting managers in the GHL believe that health is on it’s last legs as Burnside is this years recipient of the rebuild kiss of death. Last years ‘winner’ Palm Harbor Legends saw there team regress this season to an 8th place finish, just narrowly holding onto a playoff spot. What Team Do You Not Want To Meet In The Playoffs? Stony Brook (6) It’s no surprise if your considered to be the most dominant team for the next decade you’ll be the most feared in the playoffs. Stony Brook received almost a unanimous decision for the second straight season. This comes on the eve of just stamping their ticket to the second round after defeating Palm Harbor in games one and two of the first round. Regardless of the regular season workload, Landstrom will likely gets lots of opportunities to familiarise himself with the bench in meaningless game three during the playoffs. Are You Satisfied With The Current Playoff Format? No (6) A new question presented to the managers this year and dissatisfaction with the current playoff format was almost a unanimous decision. Ranging from a desire for an extended series to wanting meaningless games eliminated after qualifying for the next round, a playoff reform looks to be a hot topic moving forward. Thank you to all managers that participated in the second annual GHL managers poll. We saw submissions from a couple new faces this season but failed to receive ballots from returning managers, we’ll place the blame on the postal service and hope for more engagement next season. Best of luck to the teams in the playoffs and all teams in their preparations for next season.

On a side note, but still relevant to GHL communication. Voting is closed at the end of the weekend, takes all of two minutes to get your votes in.

As I've stated before I love the idea of a NA style world. If you think about it, a lot of the issues people have with this game are because they are North American style league fundamentals that are being forced to be implemented into a euro style format. In Euro leagues there aren't really trades and there is no draft at all. Which is why there is some friction in our current format. I believe an NA style world is going to be an absolute revelation for this game because there won't be any of those cross over clashes from NA fundamentals in a Euro format.

since the schedule of teams that you play doesn't change during the season you can break the season up into four quarters of 15 game splits. In doing that you can see how your team performs in each fifteen game span and compare that with previous results against the same team. I disagree with your statement that the results are nonsense. If in the first quarter you blow out a team it doesn't mean you will do the same the next quarter, it's reasonable to expect that the other team performed really poorly (unless they are just a bad team) and in the next quarter the team opposing team with put up a better performance. The same goes for if you get blown out in one quarter that doesn't mean the same will happen next time, your goalie might have just shat the bed. In terms of not being able to figure out how to improve, that shows a lack of awareness of the other teams in the league more than the game having nonsense results. In Howitzer most of the managers are very responsive and will talk about their own team, other teams and the league as a whole with you if you reach out. I've sent you messages numerous times for trades talks and such and you haven't been responsive. If you reached out I would have offered my opinion like I do for everyone else that reaches out but since you didn't and took it to the message boards I'll post it here: Your starter has the third best save percentage in the league despite your highest rated defenseman being 93 overall which would be a 4-5 spot defenseman on most of the perennial cup contenders in the league. From that I think it is reasonable to assume that your goaltender is being forced to play exceptionally well but it is not unreasonable to expect games where he is blown out based on the defensive core in front of him. You only have one center and one winger that I would classify as good defensive forwards and the rest of your roster has below average defensive abilities in comparison to the top teams in the GHL so that would further worsen the pressure on your goaltenders. Finally there is a steep drop off of 4-6 overall from your starter to your 2nd and 3rd string goalies. So while your starter needs to put up almost league leading numbers to keep your team competitive and win games, when you rest him what hope do your lesser goaltenders have on a defensively weaker team. Please don't take this post as me putting you down or anything like that. It's just coming to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the game when there are glaring deficiencies in your lineup that are holding you back from being one of the top teams shows that you aren't looking around the league and at other teams when evaluating your own team. This is a simulation based game where the game engine takes the abilities of your team and then simulates them against another team. So because of that it's a weighted roll of the dice and the better your team is the better your chances but it is still just a random roll. Reach out in game if you have any questions or anything you want to discuss, Wick

I think currently because of the lack of diversity in the categories the individual accolades would fall more to the top teams. I think currently in Howitzer - GHL there are 4 teams that have made the final four the last three season I believe, then there is a second tier of 6-8 teams that are pretty close and then the two teams newly promoted and two teams fighting to stay out of relegation close out the last tier. But also yeah, those are 4 managers that submitted ballots out of only 7 submissions. If this were to take of I might make it that you have to vote outside of your team so it is a league assessment, but even for the first time round we didn't run into issues of managers being biased to their own guys.

Submissions for the inaugural Howitzer - GHL Managers Poll have ended. This event will take place annually with the GHL managers receiving their ballots after game 30 and have 15 game days to get their submissions in. We received full ballots from 7 teams and a partial ballot from one team. I am keeping the answers confidential but if everyone collectively wanted transparency I can release the ballots of the managers. I like the anonymity with something like this though. With that being said here are the results. Individual Accolades Best Forward GHL - Alexandr Gavrikov, Unity Fire Dogs Receiving five of the seven votes Gavrikov was the consensus top forward in the GHL. Currently sitting with a healthy 9 point lead in the scoring race, Gavrikov has been a top 5 scorer in the league for the last four seasons straight and looks poised to capture his second scoring title in that span. Best Defensemen GHL - Dalibor Kosegi, Newcastle Fighters Kosegi grabbed four of the seven votes for top defensemen and with three other individual defensemen receiving votes. Kosegi has been flirting with the league lead in goals and battling it out with former defensive partner Joshua Metts (recipient of one vote) for highest scoring defensemen. The 24 year old Kosegi has eclipsed 50 points in his last two seasons and has a chance to crack 60 points this season. Best Goaltender GHL - Thor Landstrom, Stony Brook Steel & Gino Vincent, Unity Fire Dogs Claiming two votes each in the most spread out category, Landstrom and Vincent share will share the title of best goaltender(s) this season. Landstrom has guided his team to two GHL championships in the last three seasons while the younger Vincent looks to take Unity back to the top after being acquired two seasons ago. Landstrom and Vincent are the only goaltenders in the league to hold higher than a .930 Sv% with more than 20 games played. Number One Player Voted To Build A Team Around - Dalibor Kosegi, Newcastle Fighters & Michal Kadura, Palm Harbor Legends* Another split decision with each player receiving two votes each, the managers who took part in the poll leaned towards two young defensemen as the best foundational piece for their franchise. Kosegi who took out best defensemen is met by 21 year old Michal Kadura formally of the Nottingham Purple Storm. Kadura while yet to break out offensively looks to take steps forward in that department on a more prominent team in the GHL. Gavrikov and Landstrom also had their name thrown in the mix. Team Assessment What Is The Most Important Position - Goaltender Goaltending narrowly edges out centerman with four votes to three. With the top two teams in the league staking claim to the top two goaltenders it’s not hard to find why managers hold goaltenders in such high regard. Which Team Will Win The Most Championships Over The Next 10 Seasons? - Stony Brook Steel With five of the votes it looks like something special is being assembled in Stony Brook. Already with two championships in the last three seasons, Stony Brooks balance of elite players and youth have them slated to reach dynasty status in the 'Season 20s’. Which Team Will Need To Rebuild In The Next Five Seasons? - Palm Harbor Legends While only garnering three of the votes that was enough to have Palm Harbor as the predicted team on their last legs before tearing it down. After claiming the season 19 championship on the back of an ageing core, we’ve already started to see the transition of the Legends with the new blood coming in after the regression of Seb Jett. Who Would You Least Want To Face In The Playoffs? - Stony Brook Steel No surprise for many, Stony Brook’s prowess was established with their playoff performances and even if you hope to get by them in a serious you can be sure it’s going to take three games and letting go of any hope to rest your starting goalie to do it. Hope you guys enjoyed the Managers Poll. I have a couple additional questions I’ll look to add next season. Hopefully with some more attention to it we can receive a better response to get the leagues complete opinion.

Well we're past day 50. The initial wave of players that are looking for a contract would be well over by day 5. Then gradually as the season progresses players are more open to signing with lower league teams and injury signings take up the rest. No bug, just to late in the season. Also a helpful tip, try not to sign anyone after day 40 as when you bring a new player in they only have 'ok' confidence which hurts your overall team confidence which is never ideal, especially as you're building towards the playoffs.