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***sköldpaddor*** · 02-10-2023, 10:39 PM

Good evening SHL! Your friendly neighborhood Co-Co-Commissioner here with some big updates from HO. It’s been a little while since we’ve had one of these, and while this isn't by any means a full dive into everything we've been working on, we have a few big announcements to roll out and a couple of them we'd like to announce as soon as possible to allow GMs to plan for the future, so we're calling it a mini-SOTU. Here's what's up!

Free Agency Revamp
In past seasons, HO has observed that the FA process is not going as smoothly as expected and not entirely accomplishing what we hope it would. Some key observations we’ve made note of have been the lack of clarity on which players are going to free agency (in part due to lack of tracking), transparency, off-season crunch time and more.

We have made changes in the recent past with the goals of facilitating player movement and decreasing the learning curve and learning process for newer GM’s (including those who are newer to the site as well as GMing, and who are not as well-connected as others). We would also like to make SHL free agency an overall more realistic FA experience more alike to the frenzy of July 1st in the NHL.

With that in mind, HO is implementing a change we believe will help advance those goals, while enabling more opportunities for GMs to have more advanced discussions with players, regardless of time zone differences, and more opportunity for players to have back and forth with GMs while taking their time in choosing their next home.

Starting this coming offseason (following S69, prior to S70), HO will be implementing two things:

A signing freeze will begin on the Monday following the end of the SHL finals (ideally about one week before the opening of free agency, depending on the exact date of the SHL draft). This is intended to enable all of the above goals, and give additional time to both HO and the Budget Team to finalize the FA list as well as granting GMs ample opportunity to re-sign players before the freeze.
The opening of the free agency discussion window (aka the “legal tampering” window) will also now fall on that same date (Monday following the conclusion of the SHL finals). Previously, the discussion window opened immediately following the SHL Draft, which we believe was not conducive to allowing many GMs time to forge new connections and begin conversations with players they might not already be well-acquainted with prior to the actual opening of free agency. Free agency signing itself will still open at noon the day after the SHL Draft.

As mentioned, we hope that these changes will allow for greater clarity (and possibly excitement) surrounding the free agency process. As a reminder, while the discussion window is being extended, all contract discussions are still subject to Section 1, Subsection K, Article 1 (Enforceable Agreements: A contract agreed to by a player and GM is enforceable even if it was made through DMs or on Discord. Players and GMs may not back out of a negotiated deal once it has been agreed to.) so players should be mindful of this while they are considering their options in free agency.

Goalie Cap Changes
As the seasons have progressed, we have received a lot of feedback regarding the impact that goalies have within the sim engine. We were initially hopeful that the transition to FHM8 would address some of these concerns, but thus far we (and all of you, we’re aware) have been disappointed in that regard. The greatest pain point has been the disparity between goalie TPE numbers and their actual impact, which has created a lot of debate and a fair amount of criticism towards the current system. There is currently a fundamental mismatch between the impact of higher TPE goalies and the cap hit from their contracts - in short, the TPE goalies earn, through no fault of their own, simply does not appear to have the same impact that skater TPE does, which in turn both negatively impacts the users and teams.

HO has long debated what changes should be made to provide a better experience and framework suitable for the reality of goalies in the SHL and to which extent it should act, and while we have considered a number of options, there is only one that we are able to implement without a great deal more data at our disposal - addressing the cap implications of goalie TPE value.

Beginning in S70 (next season), teams will be granted 50% relief of goalie contract cap hit, up to a limit of 6M (up to $3m saved per rostered goalie, capped at a combined $6,000,000). Goalies will still be paid according to the same salary tiers; we found it important to balance providing cap relief without penalizing a user’s income and found this to be a proper middle ground. We will be monitoring the effects of the extra cap on team budgets, and are keeping a close eye on future cap implications (if there appears to be a massive imbalance, it is possible that HTD slots may be tweaked to balance out the effects of the changes in goalie cap hits.)

With that in mind, HO reserves the right to modify these changes as required if it becomes apparent this has created any undesired imbalance, but wanted to roll this out as soon as possible to alleviate some of the user discomfort caused by the goalie TPE/performance disparity and provide a quick response to the feedback we received, as well as giving time prior to the trade deadline for teams to make budget decisions for next season.

Edit from WBF: the current system for Active Backup Goalie relief will be eliminated, and the base tier (<300 TPE/500k) will be removed as well. The baseline salary for goalies 155-499 TPE will be $1,000,000 with a $500,000 cap charge.

Chirper
As announced in the previous SOTU, Chirper will be going live starting in the new week (this coming week, beginning the 13th of February). For those who were used to the way Twitter worked, expect it to work in much the same way. You will be able to earn 100k per post in that week’s Chirper thread for up to 2 posts per day but no more than 3 times per week, which will net you the same amount Twitter would have (600k) weekly. There will be no set topic - if you’d like to send messages in character pretending it’s your player’s Twitter account just like old times, you’re free to do that, or have a discussion with your friends on an out of character topic. We do reserve the right to review Chirper posts for quality and reject zero-effort posts (we aren’t expecting anyone to write any essays, but unlike twitter, “doing this for money #SHLHockey” is no longer going to earn you money), and will be hiring for a new Chirper Mod position shortly. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask; we’re aware that there may be some kinks to work out on this even after it’s up and running and we’ll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it all goes smoothly. This also means that this current week is the last week for which users will be compensated for tweets.

And now, a teaser for the future (insert eyes emoji here):

UPDATE PORTAL
@DrunkenTeddy and the dev team have been hard at work for a while on the update portal of myth and legend, and we have been authorized to share a quick status update with you all - the database for the portal has been created, a scraper has been validated, there is a working authentication system that utilizes forum accounts, and the team is now working on the user facing pages for the portal. There is still a good amount of work to be done on this, but at the current rate of progress, Teddy is hopeful that it will be done within the next six months. We know this is something a lot of people have wanted for a long time, so we're pretty excited to see it come to fruition.

CONCLUSION

There are a few other things we have in the works currently (including but not limited to some changes regarding awards and fantasy), but none of them are as impactful on immediate strategy as the two main items we’re announcing here so we will be announcing additional updates as those discussions conclude.

That’s all we’ve got for today - have a great weekend everyone!

On behalf of SHL Head Office,
Jess/sköldpaddor

***Frenchie*** · 02-10-2023, 10:44 PM

Quality HO work if I can say so

***Rangerjase*** · 02-10-2023, 10:45 PM

02-10-2023, 10:44 PMItsFrenchie Wrote: Quality HO work if I can say so

Technically you aren’t allowed to say so

***SDCore*** · 02-10-2023, 10:50 PM

I disagree with everything written here. I read none of it, but on principal I disagree with it.

***micool132*** · 02-10-2023, 10:51 PM

02-10-2023, 10:45 PMRangerjase Wrote:
02-10-2023, 10:44 PMItsFrenchie Wrote: Quality HO work if I can say so

Technically you aren’t allowed to say so

the fun police

Edit: also really cool stuff coming!

***Ace*** · 02-10-2023, 10:52 PM

Noice.

***RAmenAmen*** · 02-10-2023, 10:54 PM

HO disappointing again by giving me absolutely nothing to be upset about. Great job team!

PremierBromanov · 02-10-2023, 10:54 PM

I'm upset

**bbjygm** · 02-10-2023, 10:55 PM

02-10-2023, 10:50 PMSDCore Wrote: I disagree with everything written here. I read none of it, but on principal I disagree with it.

What? I didn't read your post so I couldn't understand what you meant

***Sburbine*** · 02-10-2023, 10:56 PM

Teddy is taking forever to steal my job smh, portal wen

***sköldpaddor*** · 02-10-2023, 10:57 PM

02-10-2023, 10:50 PMSDCore Wrote: I disagree with everything written here. I read none of it, but on principal I disagree with it.

understandable, have a great day

**JamesT** · 02-10-2023, 11:00 PM

02-10-2023, 10:55 PMbbjygm Wrote:
02-10-2023, 10:50 PMSDCore Wrote: I disagree with everything written here. I read none of it, but on principal I disagree with it.

What? I didn't read your post so I couldn't understand what you meant

When you gonna hire @mer as a fantasy manager

[Image: 1017638033585082389.webp?size=4096&quality=lossless]

***sköldpaddor*** · 02-10-2023, 11:05 PM

for clarification (a couple folks have asked me this already and I realized I neglected to include it in the post) - the goalie cap discount will fully replace the active backup cap relief currently in place. That will no longer be a thing with the introduction of this new goalie cap discount.

**brickwall35** · 02-10-2023, 11:06 PM

High earning goalies are no longer a total detriment! Yay!

**bbjygm** · 02-10-2023, 11:21 PM

02-10-2023, 11:00 PMJames Truong Wrote:
02-10-2023, 10:55 PMbbjygm Wrote: What? I didn't read your post so I couldn't understand what you meant

When you gonna hire @mer as a fantasy manager

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will manage, and not before.

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