Challenge Questions & Feedback Thread

[batdad]

No WHL team EVER drafts past the 12th round. You have to know how many guys you have on your list...how many (and who)you can boot off your list and still compete. Unfortunately, in EHM the new draftees do count immediately against your roster limit, whereas in real life...they do not until after season ends, and you can dump your 20 year olds etc.

Anyway... my suggestion if the game forces you to draft all 15 rounds, which I do not think it does,... you randomly draft after about round 9 or 10 and then just release those rights the next day.

You HAVE to understand your 50 man roster very well in EHM (as in real life I guess they do), and know who is going to make your team, who is going to play for you and who is valuable and who is not.

In real life...you watch the draft...noone drafts more than 10-12 players. Most teams only draft 10, and some years fewer than that.

The confusion for the Bantam draft is also multiplied by the fact that you draft them, they count against your 50 man list, but they cannot play for you (or be signed) for the season after they are drafted. It makes things tough to manage at times and remember.

Finally, I read somewhere that people thought the Bantam draft was messed up in how it was assigning you your draft position. Like guys finishing 10th and should have 12th pick, but were still getting 10th or 15th or something like that.

[bruins72]

What about OHL? Does all that you mention apply there as well?

[batdad]

no. OHL Draft is at 16. But 50 man roster stuff will still apply..although not sure the number is exactly 50 in that league.

[batdad]

At the same time though...I don't think it really hurts to have to watch how many guys you draft, etc. Just have to watch and then release the right guys. It should not hurt you if you are on A Mem Cup run.

What hurts there is when pro teams sign your guys and do not return them. As we all know. I think WHL will be fine as long as players are updated, and with Manimal doing that should be fine.

[Manimal]

We are going with the OHL in the challenge as I have not had the time to update the WHL yet (it will be done in v3.0 in the fall) I will do some kind of guide/FAQ for gameplay. Some things are different than the WHL stuff Ceebee wrote about

[bruins72]

Awesome! I'm sure we'll all benefit from that guide/FAQ, Manimal. Thanks!

[CeeBee]

Sorta like Batdad said.... I could finish 20th and get the 15th pick or finish 1st and get the 5th pick. It was mentioned by a couple of posters, me included in the Lidas 2 thread I believe. Also what Batdad said on the draft.... geez, I'm saying a lot of that.. I might draft 10 or 15, and yes you can pass on picks but I'll drop 5 or more to get down to the 50 player limit. One bonus I've noticed.... If one or more of the guys you drop has a really good year and improves they seem likely to sign with you as a FA if you give them an offer as soon as they become signable
And yes, it's all about management of the 50 man roster.... too many 19 year olds and you could be in trouble the next year as you can only have 3 20's and then an NHL club decided to keep your hot 18 year old just drafted superstar goalie all year and play him 5 games but not send him back to improve..... Sometime the Juniors just suck, but it's certainly a challenge when that 1st round Bantam bonafide future star that ALL your scouts love just tanks and becomes a dud before you even are allowed to sign him.... Welcome to the world of 15 year olds, girls, highschool, getting your drivers license and sometimes falling off the face of the hockey world in 1 short year. Nothing but fun !!!

[toddpaul]

I know I came in late, but I love the idea of changing the trades to make it harder. Instead of reputations, I would just say that you can't trade for the 'Big 3' (Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin). That or there could be a list made up of players that just aren't realistically going to be traded.

[batdad]

That has been discussed in the past. We used to say we did not want to do that at all to people, that it was too easy. We had (when I was a mod) discussed it alot, but went away from specifying who you could not trade for to specifying how much you could trade. Allow guys to make that big old deal if they want, but chastise him to death in the threads for using a guy like that....

Some guys here will still remember the player who shall not be named, traded for, or used....

[bruins72]

Some guys here will still remember the player who shall not be named, traded for, or used....

Yes... and then you went and traded for him in a recent challenge. I believe you also drafted him for your fantasy team.

[batdad]

hee. Yeah I had never had he who shall not be named. And that challenge was not all that recent. I mean I did not play Winnipeg. I cannot even recall which one it was.

And until the last 2 weeks he looked pretty good on my fantasy team eh?

[Salming]

i would like to see a harder challange. the edm challange was nice but some managers got their hands on extremly good players far to easy malkin,staal and so on.

would be fun with some point system that awards devolping youth/drafties that make points and play for your team. like old homegrown rule. but say if a player u draft make 100 points per seson u get points for that.

As for now ppl trade togheter and super team and get bored of their saves and dont bother to devolp draft players or dont get to the point when all players u drafted knocks on door to A team.

[outdooral]

Just getting caught up on these discussions. I have only played 2 challenges ,and have enjoyed the trading restrictions.A few more would make it harder and more interesting. One trade I would like to be able to do though, is to move a player out for a draft pick.Maybe once every other year, on a 1 for 1 deal only.This would help out your draft if you finish well several years in a row,and help with some cap space.
Just a thought.

[visualdarkness]

Just getting caught up on these discussions. I have only played 2 challenges ,and have enjoyed the trading restrictions.A few more would make it harder and more interesting. One trade I would like to be able to do though, is to move a player out for a draft pick.Maybe once every other year, on a 1 for 1 deal only.This would help out your draft if you finish well several years in a row,and help with some cap space.
Just a thought.

I would say the problem is that game-engine many times totally screw things up when it comes to trading draftpicks.

[eternium85]

i would like to see a harder challange. the edm challange was nice but some managers got their hands on extremly good players far to easy malkin,staal and so on.

would be fun with some point system that awards devolping youth/drafties that make points and play for your team. like old homegrown rule. but say if a player u draft make 100 points per seson u get points for that.

As for now ppl trade togheter and super team and get bored of their saves and dont bother to devolp draft players or dont get to the point when all players u drafted knocks on door to A team.

I totally agree with you on the draftees. Drafting your own players and developing them to be the core of your team would be what I would like to see. There's just one problem, as many of us aren't able to get that many seasons under the timeline when the challenge is being held. I myself am a pretty slow player so I'm not able to get more than 3 or 4 seasons recorded and that is just not enough to develop your prospects to make your team.

[bruins72]

In response to outdooral's comment about trading for a pick... I have to agree with visualdarkness. The game really doesn't handle draft pick trading all too well.

And I've got to agree with eternium85 on the bit about playing slow and not having the time to develop drafted prospects too much. I usually seem to get 3 or 4 seasons in for each challenge. Something always seems to come up and I don't get the time to play more than that.

[visualdarkness]

In response to outdooral's comment about trading for a pick... I have to agree with visualdarkness. The game really doesn't handle draft pick trading all too well.

And I've got to agree with eternium85 on the bit about playing slow and not having the time to develop drafted prospects too much. I usually seem to get 3 or 4 seasons in for each challenge. Something always seems to come up and I don't get the time to play more than that.

Exactly, therefore trading for picks could prove to be an inconsistent and for most useless addition.

The focus should be more on developing the prospects who already is on the team when the challenge starts. Everyone gets the same prospects and many of them should be able to get into the line-up without that much luck if developed correctly. Within 3 season some of these players should be NHL ready to some extent and older guys maybe shipped out.

[bruins72]

Exactly! In the Oilers challenge we had a lot of young prospects we could develop. We had Gagner, Brule, MPS, and some others. Those are the ones that you expect to develop. Then some folks might play long enough to develop guys they drafted in the first season or two. For the most part though, unless you play 7 seasons and draft one of the top guys in the first draft, you're not always going to see your draftees develop.

[visualdarkness]

Exactly! In the Oilers challenge we had a lot of young prospects we could develop. We had Gagner, Brule, MPS, and some others. Those are the ones that you expect to develop. Then some folks might play long enough to develop guys they drafted in the first season or two. For the most part though, unless you play 7 seasons and draft one of the top guys in the first draft, you're not always going to see your draftees develop.

The Oilers challenge had lots and lots of great prospects but a bunch of oldies that created a log-jam. Heck, I'm still playing the save and I failed a lot of development but heck even Petry is called a 1-2 by my scouts now. MPS is a already 100+point player in season four, in other words a world-class talent.

So lack of prospects, nah!

[Salming]

Exactly! In the Oilers challenge we had a lot of young prospects we could develop. We had Gagner, Brule, MPS, and some others. Those are the ones that you expect to develop. Then some folks might play long enough to develop guys they drafted in the first season or two. For the most part though, unless you play 7 seasons and draft one of the top guys in the first draft, you're not always going to see your draftees develop.

problems with that is most of those are random players. they can devolp or can not. the manager cant change if the player get low potential from the start. in my game gagner become a world star but MPS was born with low POT and only played good in AHL. was not my foult he got low POT from the -8 setting he start with.

If we gonna devolp youngsters they need to have fixed POT values so all got same change devolping. And then its up to the manager to match and train and devolp em.

[Salming]

Exactly! In the Oilers challenge we had a lot of young prospects we could develop. We had Gagner, Brule, MPS, and some others. Those are the ones that you expect to develop. Then some folks might play long enough to develop guys they drafted in the first season or two. For the most part though, unless you play 7 seasons and draft one of the top guys in the first draft, you're not always going to see your draftees develop.

The Oilers challenge had lots and lots of great prospects but a bunch of oldies that created a log-jam. Heck, I'm still playing the save and I failed a lot of development but heck even Petry is called a 1-2 by my scouts now. MPS is a already 100+point player in season four, in other words a world-class talent.

So lack of prospects, nah!

MPS is a -8 player in latest datebase. Wich means he is from 130 to 160 in POT. in my game he had 130 and thats a very low values and didnt improve a single skill in 8 years. i trained him very good like i did with my other prospects but he just refused to improve.

If its gonna be competition in the challange we need to compete in equal terms. FIXED pot hidden values then and not -8 or -9ers

[bruins72]

I kind of like the random potential on these prospects. It makes everyone's game different. MPS might not have developed as much in your game but another player might have developed more in your game than somebody else's game.

[mustardstew]

I kinda like the randomness of prospect potential also. Forces you to figure out development on your own. And makes for good storytelling.

I do wish that the trades could be tightened up (without too much hassle). Too quickly, especially as I'm a slow player, I read and someone's got a superstar (traded for so-and-so). It gets disheartening. I like the idea of trading, but I'm not interested in saving my team with Ovi or similar.

I guess the lesson is don't read the thread, lol... but, well...

Maybe the 1-for-1 trade a year - that way you'll get similar value back (unless its a true salary dump). And maybe lock the top tier talent in place (on the Challenge team) - although nobody should get Crosby et al with Horcoff, Hemsky, etc. 1-for-1.

Anyways, enough on that

So, can someone who's been here a while explain the rationale for bonuses for PIMs? Looking at some of the challenges, people going for the PIM bonus / record are getting players with 600+ PIMs a year . There might have been one or two players to get to 300 in the past 10 years in the NHL! Just curious...

Looking forward to the Junior's challenge! That's all about getting the most out of your players/prospects - and helping them improve and get to the NHL!

[bruins72]

You hit on 2 very good points, mustardstew!

We'll probably be limiting trades to just straight up 1 for 1 in the future for exactly the reason you gave. It's a shame because if some restraint is used, multi-player deals can be interesting. Unfortunately, it's just too tempting for most people to go after a superstar.

As for PIMs, I believe Lidas had brought up the idea of dropping them from the challenge stats and replacing them with something else. I'm pretty sure we were looking at doing that. If it doesn't happen in Challenge 17, I'm sure it will make it for the next after that.

I'm looking forward to the Juniors challenge too! It should be interesting. I've got very little experience outside of the NHL, so it will be a serious challenge for me. We're still doing a bit of testing to see what rules need to be tweaked. Hang in there!

[batdad]

Oh man..dont drop the PIMs. I love my line brawls in meaningless games.

No in all fairness...I don't like the PIMs thing either. Although, even if it is dropped I may keep fighting like a maniac because those are the type of teams I like.