I would like to know if they have reworked the potential attributes. This was a flaw in the old game. There was no fair way to rank prospects, especially very young prospects, like those who are 19 and younger. -14 potential players were very likely to succeed as a NHL player, while -13 potential players could only become a scrub NHL player at best. If I remember correctly, -14 potential had a 2/3 chance of succeeding, which is around the average of a 1st rounder. But, -13 potential players who got lucky rolls were barely serviceable, so you couldn't really rank 2nd rounders and beyond fairly. A -14 potential makes them unrealistically likely to succeed, while -13 potential gimps their potentials too much to really make them relevent to the NHL.
If they have changed the potential system, I would like to know the details. I'm sure most of you are interested in this.
Ideally, I would like a system where each player have a potential value and a range. So, a player with 150 pot and 30 range could end up in the 120-180 range, where it's weighted towards the center. This is a very flexible yet simplistic system. The negative aspect is that they would have to add another attribute to each player, but it seems like they've already done that with the player style attribute.
Otherwise, the current system of -1 to -15 potential could be changed or extended. As far as I know, at the start of a new game, a algorithm looks at the -15 potential value and randomized it into something in the 110-190 range. It can't be that hard to add additional potential ranges, like -16, -17 and onwards, simply by editing that algorith.
Here are the potential ranges in EHM 07.
http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... .php?t=631
Here are the main ranges that are used for young prospects.
-13: 60-130 PA 95 avg
-14: 90-160 PA 125 avg
-15: 110-190 PA 150 avg
Adding 16-20 to that, here are my suggestions of the ranges they would represent:
-16: 30-160 PA 95 avg: 4th rounders and beyond
-17: 40-170 PA 105 avg: 2nd-3rd rounders
-18: 50-180 PA 115 avg: late 1st-2nd rounders
-19: 70-180 PA 125 avg: 1st rounders (slightly more ranged alternative to -14)
-20: 80-190 PA 135 avg: high potential high risk 1st rounders
After it's been clarified how the game currently handles players with "random potentials", I would like to see a discussion so that we can come up with 1 or 2 good suggestions rather than bombarding them with 10 different suggestions.