Walter A. Donaldson

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  1. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Csizi96 in S9 Buzzer national teams   
    Buzzed by Paul's idea in Cage, I started to put together some small nations' national team squads. I did in 14 F, 8 D, 3 G format, tried to split the 14 into 5 C + 9 F, but where centers were clearly better than the last few forwards there I went with them. Just to be clear, I only looked at overall (what I try to avoid when building my team tho), so it's rather the best team than the right one  Any questions, requests, advice and comments are welcome as well  I also used a bit more colors in the player traits, according to the order of traits in the help files
    Let's start with the Gli Azzurri roster here too:
    Interesting to see they have a lot of free agents, almost no depth in wingers, and their best goalie is down in the Czech league. 
    Ones to watch: Pablo Zambrotta, the 87 ovr center and Samuele Perico, the 84 ovr defender, both with plenty of GHL experience, and Cristian Diego Alves, the recent BHL draftee who can grow into an important player for this team.
    As you can see, their D-line is getting old, but they try to compensate it with size and toughness

  2. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Paul T in Injuries   
    It doesn't get much more even than that, so that is not the issue.  I've seen teams play 40% line 1 and 50% first pair D with no problems.  My splits are very similar to yours.  When players get tired I'll usually adjust special teams as needed.
  3. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson got a reaction from MarkZ in Injuries   
    I suggest instead of benching players for being in the blue, perhaps re-adjust their Ice-Time, such as moving a player on the PK First line down to the Second if they are not necessary. I tend to go with an 20 Man Roster. I highly recommend tailoring the Training to Goaltenders, if you have a Workhorse, take it easy on him, and his back up push him hard to stay in shape. With Defense I recommend going all Hard Defensive Training, to keep your Older guys sharp on the Defensive end of their game. Forwards you have to make the Distinction for yourself.
    Well I hope that helps.
  4. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Paul T in Injuries   
    I'm afraid your situation can't be easily explained.  Think it's a bit of randomness and bad luck at a bad time in the season.  I noticed some of the skaters that were injured had low-ish endurance, but nothing out of the ordinary for your league level - and you definitely aren't overplaying them.  Your goalies also seem to have a nice rotation.  If you or your opponent were playing Hard or Dirty it might explain things a little more, but I have no insight into that.
    As far as what leads to players getting injured more frequently in the game, there are numerous factors.
    - Injury proneness of the specific player
    - Player fatigure... players being exhausted are more at risk of suffering an injury.  There's a few things that impact player fatigue... too much ice time, low endurance, training intensity.
    - You or your opponent playing Hard or Dirty
     
  5. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to AlexanderRasputin in Injuries   
    No pattern or explanation that I've noticed aside from perhaps a Hard fairplay tactic or low physical ratings on your players.
  6. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Wick Schozen in Manage Affiliate   
    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. 
  7. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Kyle44 in Manage Affiliate   
    So I was wondering if, in the future, it would be possible for us to manage our affiliate teams too.  It kind of sucks when a free agent or bad player is getting better playing minutes over a prospect that I want to grow.  I also think it would make the developing system a little better as if you want to work on a player's defense, you can play them in a more defensive role as opposed the the computer tossing them wherever.  I know training is partially available to do this, but being able to make a player more well-rounded in the aspects we want would be cool by setting up and managing affiliate team lines.
     
    Also, I saw in a different forum, the idea of adding national teams.  To expand on that, having a world cup would be really cool and it would also add something else for us to follow when our team gets eliminated from the playoffs, as there is only so much you could do with scouting and contracts at the end of the season.
     
    Just a couple of suggestions.  Hope to see these added, but otherwise, I've been liking 2.0 so far
  8. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson got a reaction from Kyle44 in Disappointing Contracts   
    True my salaries are more manageable, but sometimes I get a stiff the previous GM stuck me with. And 800 grand for a guy who is not really playing seems to be a waste to me.
  9. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to rainsilent in Manage Affiliate   
    Sorry. I don't specifically know how much of a difference it makes to have them playing a lot vs a little. I don't think anyone does outside of Anders because testing that would be impossible. Outside of the known note that they get better faster if they are happy with their performance I am not sure that it matters. That said if you are concerned about playing time try not to have too many players above them on the minor team is the best that you can do. That said I think the easiest solution would be just having the ability to have an organizational depth chart and the minor team would go off of that.
  10. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Kyle44 in Manage Affiliate   
    I'm getting at when you have a player getting 6 minutes in your affiliate while some bum is getting 20 minutes a game.  Your prospect's growth is either going to be really slow, or they are going to have a lower ceiling than what they should with no growth at all.  When I got promoted to the GHL I had a bunch of 2way deals that I buried in the minors.  Since I had something like 15 forwards, 3 of them were always sitting.  That happened to be my prospects.  They weren't even that bad players either.  2 of them were 77 overall at 20 years old, and because of my older players getting playing time over them, they had no growth at all in any aspect of their game that season.
  11. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Kyle44 in Manage Affiliate   
    Well my problem is that I have 11 forwards, 6 dmen playing in my minor league team ( so many players cause I promoted). For some reason one of my prospects is scratched when there is an open spot available. Instead a computer without a link is playing. As rain said, we dont know exactly how much playing time affects development, but if it does we should be able to manage the playing time given. As far as waiving players, I only use that for 1 way contacts or i will just buyout the player. Typically, my players have trade value so i dont like giving them away for free. Also, ghl teams dont have access to a second affiliate.
  12. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to littleb in Promotion Clause   
    it has been so long that I don't remember what the base wages are per level anymore.  It is somewhere in the forum though I will have a look.  I do however have a good understanding of the salary jumps.
     
    It matches the increase of salary cap which is 3.3 times I believe for that level "IF" the salary will be "below" the base wage for the next level after that calculation.  
     
    If it ends up more than the base level after the previous calculation it is the higher value of these 2 options...
     
    1. current salary x 1.25 
     
    2. Promoted league's base salary
  13. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to littleb in Promotion Clause   
    OK I was wrong... LIHL to IHL is just double in cap so is only times 2.  However a base salary is 25k in LIHL and 50k in IHL.
     
    as 69k is already above the IHL base... it will be times 1.25 like you had said
  14. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to TheWizard in Waivers and contracts   
    Stalker!
     
    But in all seriousness, the user on holiday thing makes sense.
  15. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Wick Schozen in Teamwork & Winner instinct   
    Well that seems realistic to me. In the NHL if a captain is injured you don't see another player take the letter, it's just your captain is injured and out of the lineup, still the leader in the dressing room though. So if you gave the letter to another player, there'd be a ripple effect in the room and once the captain is back and the letter is returned there is now a player who had that leadership taken away. 
     
    I haven't had my captain injured *knocks on wood* but I have had alternates go down and I usually just wait for them to return.
  16. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Wick Schozen in Teamwork & Winner instinct   
    I find trades interesting. You can add a player to your lineup that is an improvement, but better results won't come straight away. I find it can take anywhere from 10-15 games for my team to either feel normal or show improvement. I think it has to do with the player coming in with just 'ok' confidence. As a result I pretty much never make trades that affect my main lineup in the final 20 games of the season. 
  17. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Erzac in Teamwork & Winner instinct   
    These are indeed quite puzzling.
     
    From what I've observed(merely observations, not based on actual raw fact),
     
    Teamwork: Solely based on traits, doesn't fluctuate without roster moves.
     
    Confidence: A mix of individual players' confidences as well as team record. The only time I've seen better than OK confidence was last season in SHL where I had multiple long winning streaks. Even then it didn't rise above "good", so there must be some other factors involved as well. Perhaps some traits factor in?
     
    Winner instinct: Largely based on "big games" - trait, goalies seem to factor in more than your average skater. There are also some unknown factors involved that make it fluctuate a little. Possibly season record or recent games affect it somehow. I've witnessed a drop from heroic to strong, and from strong to ok while absolutely nothing else changed. No roster, lineup, confidence or training change. Just time passing, I.E. games being played/training happening(with no modifications to intensity).
     
    I also have a wild, possibly completely misplaced hunch, that your whole roster factors into these, including players in the minors. That could explain some of the weird fluctuations as well as the confidence bar seemingly lagging behind the main roster's overall confidence. But I've zero tangible facts on this.
     
    As to whether these have any actual effect on team performance, I haven't figured out. If there's an effect, it would seem to be quite small. Any big movements in the team spirits are (almost) always associated with trades, thus making it hard to judge whether the differences in team performance are a result from the different players or the team spirits changing.
  18. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Wick Schozen in Teamwork & Winner instinct   
    In regards to teamwork and winner instinct I feel they are about managing players traits in your roster, confidence is a whole different ball game but I'll get to that in a bit. I had to make some roster moves at the start of this season to get my teamwork back up. Too many arrogant and cocky players on my team seemed to take my teamwork in the wrong direction and I wasn't willing to test how much of an impact that would have on my team's record. 

    Simply signing more heroic or determined players won't affect winning instinct as much as creating a better balance among your team in terms of the trait. Adding more players that push the teams winner instinct in the right direction while also subtracting those that don't will obviously have a greater impact.
     
    I know some feel that teamwork, confidence and winner instinct doesn't have that much of an impact but I feel it does in a relative sense. For example, a player that is 95 overall will need to produce far more than a player that is 85 overall to feel confident in their game. So it is the same for a team, if a team has the potential to win the cup that means the players rostered on that team are all going to be really good. So if those players aren't producing at elite rates their confidence will reflect that as will the teams. 

    On that point I keep seeing the Biscuits GHL win referenced. The way I see it, if that team was capable of winning the cup, they had elite players on that team. So even though they beat teams that were feeling more confident, their superior player overcame inferior teams that were playing at the top of their game. 

    I'm not sure if I perfectly explained the idea I'm trying to convey but basically I see confidence as the ceiling of a players performance. Like so:

    ---------Players Peak----------
    Elite player high confidence
     
    Good player high confidence
     
    Elite player ok confidence
     
    Good player ok confidence
     
    Average player high confidence
     
    and so on......
     
    --------Player slump-------
     
     
    Basically I see it as how much of would a good player performing at his peak outperform a great player playing ok relative to his skill level.
  19. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to EXXEO in Teamwork & Winner instinct   
    Well we had a five game winning streak, lost a game and then lost in a shootout earlier today. I went back to see how the team was looking and now the Confidence is OK, the Teamwork is Good, and the Winner Instinct is back to OK (and in the blue again). I'm really confused. Also, the Confidence bar is at like 90% Green but we're just Ok in that department while the Teamwork is near 75% and Good...and how do I lose Winner Instinct???
  20. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to ET2018 in Adding more tactics?   
    That would be a nice addition as well. I just think a few more tactical options would add some variety. It's like having a soccer game but only having four formations or systems to choose from, when there is nearly 100 formation types and tactical approaches in the modern game. I know hockey is a bit different, but you still see more variety in international hockey and the NHL.
  21. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Paul T in Adding more tactics?   
    I meant to respond to this post when it was first made, then forgot about it.  I think more tactical options (or anything that adds more depth to the game) is a great thing.  My suggestion here was going to be allowing teams to pick a different tactic for each line.  A smaller faster line for transition rushes... a bigger physical line who can crash the net, etc.  I think it would allow managers to get more creative with their lines.  Even if teams were only fully familiar with 2 tactics instead of all 4 to keep some sort of identity.  Just some ideas...
  22. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to ET2018 in Adding more tactics?   
    Speaking of roles, I think the "pest" role should be added. Not as risky as an enforcer, and more of a shut-down plyer than a grinder.
  23. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to ColoKrabatt in Assistant reports - Download   
    Yes! Great idea! 
  24. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to Wick Schozen in Assistant reports - Download   
    You're a deadset genius. Funny thing, when I was doing the rebuild with my team I used to take screenshots of every page in the assistants report. Ended up having a folder that was almost a GB in just photos. 
  25. Like
    Walter A. Donaldson reacted to littleb in Assistant reports - Download   
    Oh my.... yes please!  I would love to have all the game stats downloadable to be honest
     
    Would save me a whole lot of spread sheeting time