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caltroit_red_flames · 11-04-2021, 01:47 AM

@SDCore I appreciate you bringing your experienced perspective on the topic. Your opinion carries a lot of weight considering all of the things you've done in both SHL and PBE. It's good to see you and HO members engaging in the conversation.

caltroit_red_flames · 11-04-2021, 01:49 AM

11-04-2021, 01:47 AMSDCore Wrote:
11-04-2021, 01:42 AMcaltroit_red_flames Wrote: Sounds like the pitching archs need some tweaks! On the other hand if you look at how Farnworth and Simms performed season by season and as max earner SPs from the same draft class on the same team, one flamethrower one junkballer you see this: Farnworth outperformed Simms until this season. Why? Because of differences in pitching style. Simms feeds off of the defense behind him due to ground ball percentage. Farnworth can perform better with a bad defense behind him because his game is based around getting strikeouts. Now that Simms has a defense behind him this season his ERA has improved beyond Farnworth's.

While the pitching archs aren't perfect, control freak is obviously garbage, I think flamethrower and junkballer have advantages that make them both useful. You can't make that argument on SHL. Every player needs defensive read and checking up asap. Shooting attributes don't matter. And there's no opportunity for changing that without archetypes.

I do understand what you are saying but those things are going to be hard to stop. I'm basically saying unless you mandate certain playing styles per team, you will see teams prioritize players with those stats to max their teams strengths, therefore you will run into the same issue, locking everyone into 1-2 styles/builds. I could be wrong, but experience on sim leagues tells me that people will do what will make their player best and if that's using a higher checking/d read build, well than that is that.

I don't think this will fix a meta, but push us further into one. I could be wrong, hell nobody has ever tried to use roles/tactics in a way that abuses a system to their advantage... right?

I think what it comes down to is that your concerns are valid, but I believe it's worth the risk and that we can in the short term mitigate those negatives and in the long term eliminate them. That could be pie in the sky thinking, but it's what I think regardless.

SDCore · 11-04-2021, 01:51 AM

For sure, we need to have more open and honest conversations about stuff like this. It's one of my biggest regrets in HO, you get so caught up in not wanting people to take advantage of things that you don't say shit and then people do it anyway. I was just talking to @Nhamlet and he suggested maybe a dept for testing (balancing, meta, whatever can help the league) and knowledge distribution. This could help with getting people more familiar with FHM, make it less daunting, help new users or GMs engage with the sim more readily.

Mutedfaith · 11-04-2021, 02:43 AM

11-04-2021, 01:01 AMhotdog Wrote: 3) fix regression

Should be #1

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 11-04-2021, 06:31 AM

I really don't like archetypes and they way they limit player builds. I think we shouldn't underestimate how big of a factor it can be if you basically already know how your player will end up looking once he is fully developed the second you create him, with very little variation in between. It does make things less interesting. But at the same time I do agree that with the whole meta-approach this league has been taking over the last few years, something like this might become inevtiable. I do like the Archetype Roles thing as a bit of a middle ground, to have Archetypes that don't limit their builds but the roles they can have in the Sim, to make it so that players can't just have every role that a GM assigns them and be good at it. Limit it to 3-5 roles per player maybe, it still gives the GMs plenty of flexibility while doing away with the problem that a high-TPE Sniper is also an Elite Playmaker and Elite Defensive Forward somehow. Not sure this would be enough though.

Frankly, the big problem I see here is with the mindset of the league in general. We have moved away from the more spontaneous, chill and somewhat random approach to the sim that we had in the past and that other sim league still adhere to much more. And we have replaced it with a much more competitive line of thinking where people spend hours on test-simming, where engine-knowledge has become so much more important, where people are constantly on the lookout for new exploits and meta builds, where some of us are basically part of the development of the engine itself already while others don't even own their own copy. It's something that had started way before our switch to FHM, but has gone into overdrive since then.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, people simply have different approaches to video games - some just want to enjoy the experience and the general feel of a game, they might invest just as much time as anyone else but a game is more fun for them if they don't strip away that shiny layer of "magic" to deal with the numbers and sliders and mechanics in the engine room. Whereas for others, it's the learning and optimization of these numbers that make a game fun and engaging in the first place. Different strokes for different folks - if we were talking about a singlepelayer experience. But in a strictly multiplayer game like this one, the latter approach leads to a whole swath of problems as we've been seeing over the last few years. That's why actual game developers spend millions of dollars on balancing and patching their games even years after they've been released, because they know how new exploits and metas ruin the experience for everyone in the long haul.

Maybe the main issue with the engine itself is that it rewards relatively small gaps in roster quality or GM-knowledge with a way too big gap in results. Having a great roster and GM compared to "only" a good roster and GM should give you like a 20 point edge in the standings, not a 50 point one. It's good that quality and competence are rewarded, but the rewards are too big. You could argue that with the relatively strict cap rules we have nowadays, we have more parity in pure roster quality than ever before in the FHM era, and yet the gaps in the Standings are as big as ever. And all that just because of two factors: Different levels of GM knowledge and a different levels of willingness to embrace meta builds and/or exploits within the teams. And both two factors aren't great I would argue. For the meta builds and exploits the reasons are quite obvious and have been listed plenty of times, but I would argue that it's the same for the category of "GM skill" as well. Of course good GMing needs to be rewarded, but we are getting to a point where we run the risk of becoming a league that is just geared towards the 30 or so people in a GM positions to fight their own battles amongst themselves, whereas the hundreds or other members are just passengers with very little impact on the outcome. The kind of player you build and the effort you put into him becomes less and less important, at this point it's all about whether you have the luck to play for a GM with super deep FHM knowledge or not. And to add insult to injury, with the way FHM operates it's impossible to compete even as a great GM if you don't already have the luxury of a great roster - and building that one up and getting there is incredibly hard, whereas already having one and staying at the top isn't, as the last few years have proven.

Henrik · 11-04-2021, 06:37 AM

11-04-2021, 06:31 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: I really don't like archetypes and they way they limit player builds. I think we shouldn't underestimate how big of a factor it can be if you basically already know how your player will end up looking once he is fully developed the second you create him, with very little variation in between. It does make things less interesting. But at the same time I do agree that with the whole meta-approach this league has been taking over the last few years, something like this might become inevtiable. I do like the Archetype Roles thing as a bit of a middle ground, to have Archetypes that don't limit their builds but the roles they can have in the Sim, to make it so that players can't just have every role that a GM assigns them and be good at it. Limit it to 3-5 roles per player maybe, it still gives the GMs plenty of flexibility while doing away with the problem that a high-TPE Sniper is also an Elite Playmaker and Elite Defensive Forward somehow. Not sure this would be enough though.

Frankly, the big problem I see here is with the mindset of the league in general. We have moved away from the more spontaneous, chill and somewhat random approach to the sim that we had in the past and that other sim league still adhere to much more. And we have replaced it with a much more competitive line of thinking where people spent hours on test-simming, where engine-knowledge has become so much more important, where people are constantly on the lookout for new exploits and meta builds, where some of us are basically part of the development of the engine itself already while others don't even own their own copy. It's something that had started way before our switch to FHM, but has gone into overdrive since then.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, people simply have different approaches to video games - some just want to enjoy the experience and the general feel of a game, they might invest just as much time as anyone else but a game is more fun for them if they don't strip away that shiny layer of "magic" to deal with the numbers and sliders and mechanics in the engine room. Whereas for others, it's the learning and optimization of these numbers that make a game fun and engaging in the first place. Different strokes for different folks - if we were talking about a singlepelayer experience. But in a strictly multiplayer game like this one, the latter approach leads to a whole swath of problems as we've been seeing over the last few years. That's why actual game developers spent millions of dollars on balancing and patching their games even years after they've been released, because they know how new exploits and metas ruin the experience for everyone in the long haul.

Maybe the main issue with the engine itself is that it rewards relatively small gaps in roster quality or GM-knowledge with a way too big gap in results. Having a great roster and GM compared to "only" a good roster and GM should give you like a 20 point edge in the standings, not a 50 point one. It's good that quality and competence are rewarded, but the rewards are too big. You could argue that with the relatively strict cap rules we have nowadays, we have more parity in pure roster quality than ever before in the FHM era, and yet the gaps in the Standings are as big as ever. And all that just because of two factors: Different levels of GM knowledge and a different levels of willingness to embrace meta builds and/or exploits within the teams. And both two factors aren't great I would argue. For the meta builds and exploits the reasons are quite obvious and have been listed plenty of times, but I would argue that it's the same for the category of "GM skill" as well. Of course good GMing needs to be rewarded, but we are getting to a point where we run the risk of becoming a league that is just geared towards the 30 or so people in a GM positions to fight their own battles amongst themselves, whereas the hundreds or other members are just passengers with very little impact on the outcome. The kind of player you build and the effort you put into him becomes less and less important, at this point it's all about whether you have the luck to play for a GM with super deep FHM knowledge or not. And to add insult to injury, with the way FHM operates it's impossible to compete even as a great GM if you don't already have the luxury of a great roster - and building that one up and getting there is incredibly hard, whereas already having one and staying at the top isn't, as the last few years have proven.

Couldn't agree more. You are on a roll today mate

Memento Mori · 11-04-2021, 07:26 AM

SHL is very much a secondary league to me, and I thought my perspective as someone who doesn't own the game or know much about the engine might be useful. Building your player in SHL is so daunting.

It's already been said that archetypes don't necessarily make things much more diverse. Looking at ISFL archetypes, at most positions there's two dominant archetypes and the others are largely ignored. I think the worst example is something like linebacker, where 16 of the top 20 by TPE are pass rushers. They do steer you in the right direction when building your player though, and give you something to work towards. You're a speed back, who caps at 100 speed? It's pretty obvious that speed is key to your build performing well, and that your archetype has been designed and balanced in a way that takes into account that you are faster than other running backs. Here, the attributes that are key to your success depend on what roles are good, and what role your GM is going to use you in. What role your GM is going to use you in depends on what attributes you improve, and results in a circular system where building your player is - on a sliding scale - a cooperative venture with your GM.

When you create a player, there are 23 attributes you can increase, 22 of them limitlessly (shooting accuracy/range for defenceman/forwards). It's vital that you upgrade some of these right away. There's others where it's (seemingly) vital that you don't. Then you combine that with the fact that unlike other sports games physical attributes aren't vastly overpowered, and the attributes you should improve are even less obvious. I found and still do find SHL the most daunting from this perspective. When you consider how interconnected the sim league community is, this is a problem. I backed out of creating at least once before I actually did. In the end, some friends built my 155 build, my J GMs built my 350 and 425 builds, and my SHL GM built my current build. I don't want to hinder my team by not following the 'right' update path, so I'd rather they just build my player for me.

Clean Andrei Kostitsyn · 11-04-2021, 08:56 AM

wit arcketype ther woud hav be no andrei. andrei is yooneeq player. scor gols hit hard. very strong. best player.

you seek mor 'control' for solooshion
meybee beter solooshion is less control
mor chaos

thank

***Chevy*** · 11-04-2021, 09:14 AM

11-04-2021, 08:56 AMClean Andrei Kostitsyn Wrote: wit arcketype ther woud hav be no andrei. andrei is yooneeq player. scor gols hit hard. very strong. best player.

you seek mor 'control' for solooshion
meybee beter solooshion is less control
mor chaos

thank

Pay this man.

caltroit_red_flames · 11-04-2021, 09:21 AM

11-04-2021, 07:26 AMMemento Mori Wrote: When you create a player, there are 23 attributes you can increase, 22 of them limitlessly (shooting accuracy/range for defenceman/forwards). It's vital that you upgrade some of these right away. There's others where it's (seemingly) vital that you don't. Then you combine that with the fact that unlike other sports games physical attributes aren't vastly overpowered, and the attributes you should improve are even less obvious. I found and still do find SHL the most daunting from this perspective. When you consider how interconnected the sim league community is, this is a problem. I backed out of creating at least once before I actually did. In the end, some friends built my 155 build, my J GMs built my 350 and 425 builds, and my SHL GM built my current build. I don't want to hinder my team by not following the 'right' update path, so I'd rather they just build my player for me.

Wouldn't balanced archetypes fix this exact issue? You come in and think "I want to make an offensive defenseman", boom your arch is there and you know what to do.

@RomanesEuntDomus I don't see archetypes as limiting uniqueness. FHM has 22 minor roles for forwards and 14 for defensemen. If create archetypes for each role that that are balanced in a way that each each has a level of viability then we're going to have a ton of unique builds. I can go to HAM's roster on the other hand and I guarantee you there isn't a single player without at least 17 defensive read and checking. Doesn't matter if you wanted to be an offensive minded sniper, having that much "freedom" has forced them to build the meta player. It's not real freedom if we know what the meta build is. Again archetypes would allow us to tweak metas out of existence.

***sve7en*** · 11-04-2021, 09:29 AM

Having some ability to shift between archetypes would be nice

***By-Tor*** · 11-04-2021, 09:30 AM

My two thoughts after skimming most of this:

1. Not a huge fan of archetypes if it means some people will be capped at a lower TPE than others. Not against the idea, but want the potential for equal growth.

2. While I think there is definitely a line of "too much", I think having a perennially successful team is an ode to the skill of the GMs. Anyone is able to build what those teams have if they put the work in. Kinda like the NHL - FAs go to good culture teams, winning teams, and avoid losers. I think if GMs only want to put in 75% effort, they should have a team performing at 75%. Additionally, successful teams will train their prospects to fit into their system no matter if we are talking about Hamilton or real life.

...I think?

Credit to enigmatic, Merica, and tweedledunn for sigs

Mooty99 · 11-04-2021, 09:31 AM

Even to someone like me who knows little about FHM and every nut and bolt of how the league truly functions, this is a superb read and great idea,. Any attempt to fix the continuous domination of a small number of teams and more help for player creation via the use of archetypes to give people more comfort to build a player themselves is very welcome. These aspects of 2 of the most intimidating and off putting aspects of an otherwise great sim league.

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 11-04-2021, 09:34 AM

11-04-2021, 09:21 AMcaltroit_red_flames Wrote:
11-04-2021, 07:26 AMMemento Mori Wrote: When you create a player, there are 23 attributes you can increase, 22 of them limitlessly (shooting accuracy/range for defenceman/forwards). It's vital that you upgrade some of these right away. There's others where it's (seemingly) vital that you don't. Then you combine that with the fact that unlike other sports games physical attributes aren't vastly overpowered, and the attributes you should improve are even less obvious. I found and still do find SHL the most daunting from this perspective. When you consider how interconnected the sim league community is, this is a problem. I backed out of creating at least once before I actually did. In the end, some friends built my 155 build, my J GMs built my 350 and 425 builds, and my SHL GM built my current build. I don't want to hinder my team by not following the 'right' update path, so I'd rather they just build my player for me.
Wouldn't balanced archetypes fix this exact issue? You come in and think "I want to make an offensive defenseman", boom your arch is there and you know what to do.

@RomanesEuntDomus I don't see archetypes as limiting uniqueness. FHM has 22 minor roles for forwards and 14 for defensemen. If create archetypes for each role that that are balanced in a way that each each has a level of viability then we're going to have a ton of unique builds. I can go to HAM's roster on the other hand and I guarantee you there isn't a single player without at least 17 defensive read and checking. Doesn't matter if you wanted to be an offensive minded sniper, having that much "freedom" has forced them to build the meta player. It's not real freedom if we know what the meta build is. Again archetypes would allow us to tweak metas out of existence.

SDCore and others have talked about this much more eloquently than me already, but in my opinion it absolutely does because it puts your career on rails essentially. Right now players can theoretically do whatever they want. They naturally gravitate towards the meta builds but they can change their minds along the way, go for different builds than originally planned, choose to not chase the meta anymore etc. You can go for crazy things and attribute combinations that don't make much sense on paper because of roleplaying. If you do strict archetypes, then the moment someone creates a player he already knows what his eventual perfect build will look like and it's just a grind to get there from now on, with little to no chance to deviate from that pre-selected build. I for one find that an incredibly boring thought. That's in no way meant to defend the current meta-situation, but in my opinion we'd just be replacing one boring situation with another.

Also you'd have to make sure that these archetypes are near perfect, because if they aren't you will end up having players who are worth much less than their competition no matter how active they are, just because of the archetype they selected when they were still new to the league and had no idea how everything works. And with how quickly new metas and/or exploits seem to pop up these days, I highly doubt that we'll be able to find these perfect builds that will stand the test of time for 10+ seasons.

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 11-04-2021, 09:37 AM

11-04-2021, 09:30 AMBy-Tor Wrote: 2. While I think there is definitely a line of "too much", I think having a perennially successful team is an ode to the skill of the GMs. Anyone is able to build what those teams have if they put the work in. Kinda like the NHL - FAs go to good culture teams, winning teams, and avoid losers. I think if GMs only want to put in 75% effort, they should have a team performing at 75%. Additionally, successful teams will train their prospects to fit into their system no matter if we are talking about Hamilton or real life.

...I think?

I would argue that the problem right now is that GMs who put in 100% of effort (or have 100% "skill") end up with a 100% performance, whereas GM's who only have 90% end up with a 50% performance and everyone below 80% ends up with a 10% performance or lower. Relatively small differences in quality of TPE, GM skill or builds have massive impacts on the sim results, much more than they do in real life for example where both the regular seasons and the playoffs are much close and way less predictable at this point than they are here.

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