GamePlanHockey

Players taking faceoffs during games will develop their faceoff skill. Centers will also improve during training. But it improves slower than most other skills.
 
In a release not far from now (I hope) I'm going to add the possibility to train a specific skill of the managers choice for each player.

Thanks for all your feedback! And sorry for not being so active in these kind of questions. I'll try to do better.
 
Regarding game masters: I worry that not all game worlds actually has enough committed managers to carry that responsibility. I also worry about the possible abuse from these game masters. But maybe there is a way to solve this.
 
What do you guys think of the following scenario?
 
A couple of trusted mangers will get the role of Game World Moderators who then has the rights to revert trades and suspend other managers. But they will only have that right if the manager in question has gotten enough Cheater votes or Bad trade votes. The latter will then be a new feature allowing managers to down vote trades that they feel are bad or abusive. If no game world moderators exist (or responds) a message will be sent to me when a manager gotten enough votes. That way I can revert the trades or suspend managers.
 
Please feel free to comment or make other suggestions!

Thanks for all your feedback! And sorry for not being so active in these kind of questions. I'll try to do better.
 
Regarding game masters: I worry that not all game worlds actually has enough committed managers to carry that responsibility. I also worry about the possible abuse from these game masters. But maybe there is a way to solve this.
 
What do you guys think of the following scenario?
 
A couple of trusted mangers will get the role of Game World Moderators who then has the rights to revert trades and suspend other managers. But they will only have that right if the manager in question has gotten enough Cheater votes or Bad trade votes. The latter will then be a new feature allowing managers to down vote trades that they feel are bad or abusive. If no game world moderators exist (or responds) a message will be sent to me when a manager gotten enough votes. That way I can revert the trades or suspend managers.
 
Please feel free to comment or make other suggestions!

Thanks for all your feedback! And sorry for not being so active in these kind of questions. I'll try to do better.
 
Regarding game masters: I worry that not all game worlds actually has enough committed managers to carry that responsibility. I also worry about the possible abuse from these game masters. But maybe there is a way to solve this.
 
What do you guys think of the following scenario?
 
A couple of trusted mangers will get the role of Game World Moderators who then has the rights to revert trades and suspend other managers. But they will only have that right if the manager in question has gotten enough Cheater votes or Bad trade votes. The latter will then be a new feature allowing managers to down vote trades that they feel are bad or abusive. If no game world moderators exist (or responds) a message will be sent to me when a manager gotten enough votes. That way I can revert the trades or suspend managers.
 
Please feel free to comment or make other suggestions!

Thanks for all your feedback! And sorry for not being so active in these kind of questions. I'll try to do better.
 
Regarding game masters: I worry that not all game worlds actually has enough committed managers to carry that responsibility. I also worry about the possible abuse from these game masters. But maybe there is a way to solve this.
 
What do you guys think of the following scenario?
 
A couple of trusted mangers will get the role of Game World Moderators who then has the rights to revert trades and suspend other managers. But they will only have that right if the manager in question has gotten enough Cheater votes or Bad trade votes. The latter will then be a new feature allowing managers to down vote trades that they feel are bad or abusive. If no game world moderators exist (or responds) a message will be sent to me when a manager gotten enough votes. That way I can revert the trades or suspend managers.
 
Please feel free to comment or make other suggestions!

A salary cap raise is planned for next release. The raise will be a one time thing though. Have to give a yearly increase some more thought.

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

Just a small thing that might make speaking with other GM's more convenient, if something similar to an email inbox was implemented instead of having to chase down old messages through all the gm notifications.

I haven't been much around lately, but don't worry i'm still here :-)
 
Anders, congratz with your first title!

Truly great input in this topic. The last v1.0.2 update fixes the issue with unrealistic promotion contracts. I'm also going to have a closer look at player happiness and take more things into consideration. Thanks.

Foreign Affiliate Teams
 
I like the World structure of foreign leagues in GPHM now.  USA has AMHL and AMHL2 (similar to AHL and ECHL in real life); Sweden has SEHL, SEHL2, SEHL3 (similar to Elitserien, Allsvensken, and HockeyEttan in real life), so on and so forth.  Let's use the foreign teams as affiliates.
 
 
CPU manages minor league teams
 
A parent team in GHL/SHL/IHL/LIHL could have "control" over 1 or 2 minor league teams, for example in AMHL and/or AMHL2.  The human GM of the parent team can call up/send down players, and the CPU will be in charge of playing, coaching, developing the minor league teams.  That way you don't have to rely on another human to develop your players.

I think the greed trait could and really should stay as there are players in real life that are willing to take noticeably less than other equivalent players and the "home team discount" is a real observable thing but the difference between loyalist and mercenary needs to be smaller for sure.
 
I don't know the current mathematical spread difference between Loyalist and Mercenary but for argument sake let us assume it is 50% meaning a Loyalist demands 50% of what a Mercenary would. I think it would be a lot more realistic at about 15%. I could do the rough math of the difference of what the current difference might be with the example I am about to provide but there is no actual way to show I am right however it is obviously a significantly higher percentage. So example time. One of the best shooters and overall players in the Biscuit GHL is a mercenary and demands close to 9 million. Using him as the basis of best players overall I can show the difference between what Loyalist would look like with the differences of 10 and 15% off.
 
10% of 9,000,000= 8,100,000
15% of 9,000,000= 7,650,000
For the heck of it I will add 3 more percentages: 12.5%, 17.5% and 20%.
12.5% of 9,000,000= 7,875,000
17.5% of 9,000,000= 7,425,000
20% of 9,000,000= 7,200,000
 
Personally I see 20% as a bit of an extreme but not so unrealistic that it isn't acceptable and should still be considered. However I do see 10% as too extreme the other way as in too small of a difference. That is just me though. How would this work with the 5 sets of the greed trait? Simple. With Loyalist at 10% and mercenary always at 0 the other three (Team player, professional and Individualist) would have to be 2.5%, 5% and 7.5% respectfully. With Loyalist at 12.5% the other three would have to be 3.125%, 6.25% and 9.375%. At 15%; 3.75%, 7.5% and 11.25%. At 17.5%; 4.375%, 8.75% and 13.125%. Finally at 20%; 5%, 10% and 15%.
 
Now this obviously will prevent too unrealistically low salary demands however how does this prevent very high offers from skewing the market causing things to go out of control? This acts as a grounding basis where the player demands are. The human managers can still offer higher than market value without distorting the market all together.

As of now there are too big differences in demands depending if the player is a mercenary or s loyalist. I'm going to make further changes and maybe even remove the greed trait. I understand what you're saying Jusatin and it certainly would be more realistic to have players looking on equal player salaries when making demands. I really like the idea but it may also be abused by other managers as Tutankhamen pointed out.

While I appreciate a lot of the ideas on here, many of the proposed scheduling issues as far as being awake or available for free agency or having a day to resign players before being promoted are simply for personal convenience and should be avoided. We are fortunate to have people playing from all around the world so a universal clock would make no sense. Further, it makes it more fun if you miss out one day or lose a star player and are forced to figure out how to rectify your team and build from there. This is the essence of the game. Most of us who have been playing a bit understand this and enjoy it. It makes it more realistic that a good player wants to bolt after he developed and play for a larger team. It does not make sense to say that the last day after a season's championship should be set aside for upcoming teams to "catch up" as this is not realistic. You can take as much time as you'd like to put into the game, but changing the rules to suit you in the case of inconveniences isn't a realistic or viable option. All that being said, it's awesome so many people are invested enough in the game to voice suggestions and create open discussion.

There are some players in the game who undoubtedly get hurt more than others. Would there be a way to code in an injury prone tendency later as it's not as important as a draft but these players woukd understand they tend to get hurt and would sign at a cheaper amount than a normal player at that caliber?

What would people think to a cup competition for each world that takes place during the season?
 
Maybe something similar to the FA Cup in English soccer where all teams are involved but the top teams come in at a later round to give the lower league teams a chance to progress. I realise on paper the GHL teams would have a huge advantage but maybe ambitious players from lower league teams who play well in big games should get an extra boost when playing the big clubs?
 
Just thinking it's something extra to compete for?

I mean, its a nice idea. But it wouldn't make sense to include every League within a World in it....wouldn't be much of a competition.....it'd just be like a second GHL playoffs.
 
I think the International Competition would work at each League level....but that's probably something Anders could look into once he's taken care of the more important business.

Ok, so first of all this post is witten out of my own experience of this onlinegame (which I love and see a lot of potential in) and my seasons I´ve played,what I´ve tested, tried out and learnt but also from comparing with other sportsims I´ve played online. 
And that is quite a few, from hockeysims as Hockeydynasty, to great soccersims as Hattrick and a few more and on to some other ones like horseracingsims and so on. You see, What I´m just trying to say is that if I come to a few conclucions it is out of hanging  round a lof of games and those gameforums and communitys.
Anyhow, my mainpoint with this post is that in the most succesfull of those games the thing that drives most people and that most seems to enjoy, what makes them stay and love the game, is the feeling of building your own team, your own club and lead them to glory! ( well, or at least try it   )
 
 
Now, looking at Mitts and a few other worlds I´ve played in I see one big challenge in this game. It is in trying to combine the classic "european hockey " or soccerbased league system with promotions/relegations (as many online sportsims)  with the american idea of a more closed league, and as in NHL with the salarycap.
 
The problem I´ve seen in this that seems to occur in a few gameworlds is that the game, for a few reasons, won´t encourage long term squadbuilding when starting in lower leagues; (and try follow me now  )
The basic problem I think is there is to much unbalance between the factors of salarycapspace for lower-league teams, happiness and the, happinessrelated, matchperformance for players.
To me the contract-unhappiness, and hence the worse playerperformance, happens to fast, especially when related to the salarycapspace-differences that now is way to big between teams in the next tier above. Like between BHL to SHL and from SHL to GHL.This makes it almost imossible to start a season with more than,say, 5-7 good prospects for each respective leaguelevel without it turning out the way that midseason, when your prospects hopefully developed, u have no capspace and a bunch of whining Drouins     
 No matter playingtime, keyroles etc ... now happiness is about if players are having to low salary compared to ratings (modified by mentals) and also when the unhappiness-spiral starts it goes down and down waaaayyy tooo fast!! (  especially If we are supposed to have so little capspace). 
This gets especially frustrating since om the other hand higher-tier teams, and most of all GHL-teams, can reap the benefits from this as they can sit with loads of talents that hardly play, and many if playing only playing 4th-line, and they are still happy and fine.
All in all this results in GHL-teams having 60m capspace having to much benfits, being able to keep players, keep talents, plunder SHL-teams for talents AND having financial power in FA-market. 
 
______________________________
 
As of now an SHL-team can have a max of about 5-7 good prospects in the 80-82:s region if they want to have some depth in the rest of the squad, while my top GHL-team in Gino had 10 players with OA 87-94 and still managed to have a bunch of prospects and depth-players. This just to let you consider the huge benefits of the GHL-teams.

I Can think of two suggestions worth considering:
 
1) Maybe then it should take a little longer, say 1 season from happy to frustrated or wants to leave and also role and playingtime should influence happiness more, All to make it possible for lower-ranked teams to keep prospects a little longer.
 
2) To me capspace for i.ex. BHL and SHL should be increased. A more logical capspace would be 10m and 30m to at least encourage and give managers a chance when they try build slowly and longterm. It would still be a huge difference between leagues.
 
 
I really think this is an issue as to me this seems like a big problem in the long run if you want to attract new players. 
 What will you think of a game where you build a team and still has to let go of a few of "your guys" like say every second season if you don´t gain promotion? Of a game where you way to often will feed the SHL or GHL-teams just to have even less chance of surviving once you yourself get promoted?
 
Maybe I´m wrong but to me as of now there is a risk that the game doesn´t inspire and encourace those who wants to play it just in the way that so many sportnerds loves to play it. The way you play football manager, the way yuo play many other online-sims. Where you try and start from lower leagues, building your own team, your own club and lead them to glory!
 
Well, that was my "case"   and I sure know we all may see things differently but this is my thoughts out of my experience with this game and many others. Thank you for your time reading if you managed to get this far   

(edited fonts etc after a kind "remark" below. Sorry for messing things up)
 
 
 
 

"Recent reports indicate that the Dutchmen's number one goalie Reed is under investigation for the use of a performance enhancing substance"
 
Reed's extraordinary numbers during the playoffs seem to back up this outlandish claim:
 
GOALIE GP GS MIN W L OTL GA GAA SA SV SV% SO PER #1 Adie Livesey (G)   3 3 146 2 0 0 7 2.88 61 54 .885 0 67 #35 Shmuel Reed (G)   7 6 399 7 0 0 4 0.60 173 169 .977 3 87

Hi, more countries will be added on the next major release.

Hi, more countries will be added on the next major release.

Singing contracts is confusing. Way too confusing.

I had (and still have) old goalie i wanted to get rid off. I offered him contract with 1 (or two years, don't remember). I thought it would replace the old (long) contract. But it actually added one more year to the last contract and changed the salary.

Now last night i made two new contract offers to 2 of my players.

The younger one had already some years left but was unhappy with salary so i offered bit more expensive contract for 5 years.

Older (but still developing) player was also unhappy with his contract but i liked how many years he had.. but i was also happy about that player and considered adding a few.. so i offered two years. 

I assumed that it would ADD those years to previous like it did few seasons back to my goalie.. instead those years were replaced.. so they got shorter.

I think you should either change the contract signing so that there would be either
A) you only could replace the years from previous contract, so the number you put would be the years that player will play on your team
you only could add contracts on contracts.. like if you input "1" to years, it would add another season, but you could change the salary
C) sigining new contract wouldn't change anything (years or salary) on current contracts but you could negotiate new contract that would start after the last one ends (so one player could play me for 1 year for 200 000, i sign new contract, he still plays this season for 200 000 but next 2 seasons he would get 310 000)

The problem with C is that only way to change bad contract situations would remove the contract (taking penalty).. unless you changed the happiness-factor including that player would become happy for future-years contract.. but i think that "greed" should factor this happiness-situation and also how willingly player would stay in same team (because it has types like "teamplayer" that would likely to stay.. "mercenary" would be more "opportunistic" and might want to change to bigger leagues). If you hired a player for 5 eýears and 3 years he is "unhappy".. it would just be stick in ass the whole time not playing fully..

(I think i have read something about that "C" making into game at some point.. atleast i think you considered it at some point)

(PS: Great game. I posted this only to point out that sometimes contract seasons add to previous and sometimes it replaces last numbers.. which is just confusing)

This is a great idea and this feature actually already is in the backlog. Like your ideas!

Hi Jer
 
Think I understand what you mean. Yes, as you missed the playoffs you will remain in the IHL next season. That means that you have the same salary cap restrictions as you have today. If you don't have any space left you can't offer one of your players a raise until you have created more space. This can be done on two ways. As you mentioned you can release one of your players and take the penalty. You might also try to trade away one player for another player with less salary.
 
If you have any outgoing contracts those players will automatically be released the last day of the season without penalty. Then you will have more space. It can be quite hard to keep good players in a lower league if they develop fast since they're looking to play in a higher league and therefore have higher salary demands. If a player have unreasonable high demands maybe the best thing is to let him go.
 
Good luck

Hey everybody!
 
I finally decided to join the forums, even though I have been playing Game Plan Hockey Manager since June 2015, back when the worlds were named Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo.
 
I currently manage the Prairie City Steers in Clapper and the Dunkirk Sea Hawks in Lumber.
 
GPHM is one of the best online manager games, across all sports!  Thank you Anders and everyone in the community for making it a success!
 
Who else is with me in Game World Lumber?