EHM The Blue Line

Junior challenges kind of bore me. I get too good too fast. But I likely will not be playing that one, as entering busy Little LEague time and no time for EHM from May through Sept. basically NHL playoffs start and I am screwed for time. Explains why so few posts from me lately...

I'm up for a junior challenge. It's been quite a while since I've been involved in one.

As much as I like the OHL, I had hoped we might do a QMJHL challenge with a Nova Scotia junior team (I miss my home province ). Halifax would be too easy but Cape Breton has been mediocre to bad in recent years.

Woot new DB, time to sim and see which junior teams suck!

I'll announce the new Challenge on Monday.

Time for the requisite question- the last challenge is over, when is the next one? Finally finished up with school (not that a first year teaching is simple... but it's more time) and ready to rock and roll! (Every challenge needs a last place... that's why I'm here!)

In seriousness, it's awesome that whenever I have an EHM itch, TBL is still there!

Glad to hear you're still enjoying EHM and our challenges!

I'm currently reworking the challenge rules to hopefully add a little more trading to them (while still preventing people from abusing the trade AI). My plan is to kick off the next challenge once the roster guys are ready to make their first release of the 2014-2015 rosters.

Is it too late to join the Carolina challenge or is it better to wait for the 35th one? I am also hooked on my current save, but I'd love to try a challenge

Never too late to get as much done as you can with it.

I'm not sure as I said I'm hooked into my current save. When will a new challenge start?

Alessandro wrote:When will a new challenge start?

They usually start a week or two after the previous one has ended, I think.
Hurricanes challenge ends Jan. 7th

Then I will wait! Batdad, prepare yourself!

Heh. I do not play in all of the challenges alessandro. We shall see, I may or may not depends on what it is and whether I have time.

batdad wrote:Heh. I do not play in all of the challenges alessandro. We shall see, I may or may not depends on what it is and whether I have time.

So those that have participated in the current challenge... do you have any suggestions for tweaking these new rules we used? I didn't get to properly test them out before we started the challenge. I was also without EHM for most of this challenge, so I haven't played it much. I'd like your opinions.

I like the rules, but I think the one thing that needs to be laid out a little better is the rating scale for those who are unsigned prospects at the start of the game.

In many cases how they are rated is too high because of their draft position, and they do not fit in those slots at all (In other words performance is WELL below where their draft position was). Yeah there are some flops of course in all situations, even when we draft them.

The example I can think of is Nedjelkovic. Really this guy is a C, but he is not rated a C, so you have to go by his draft position which leads to him being a B or even A (Cannot recall if a 2nd or 3rd rounder right now). That makes it impossible to move him out at a value that will not tick off your board, and fans if he has come and played for you.

But..that is really minor to me. I am quite happy with how this turned out. I mean I have played 6 seasons in and my roster consists of a TON of the guys that are original Hurricanes a few draft picks and a few traded for guys.


Skinner, E Staal, J Staal, Murphy, Faulk, Ward, Nedjelkovic, Lindholm, Fleury--9 original Hurricanes in the DB
Stetstenko, Macarthur, Kolba, Smrek, Warkentine, Clarke, Coghlan,Namestnikov-8 draft picks of my own.
Doherty, Biggs, Kubalik, Verrier-4 traded for players.

NO UFA in my lineup right now.

I also have Peyton Lee from a trade, who will likely slide into the lineup as backup for Season 7. Not going to be able to afford to resign Nedjelkovic. SO 5 from trade, and I will likely bring in two C rated forwards (LW and C) on UFA. I did not re-sign Shawn Matthias during 6, but will bring him back as an UFA I think along with another player for the left side for season 7.

So that would give me two UFA, 5 trade and 16 orginal Canes.

Relatively conservative play from me as always as like to develop from within, but there is a ton of room to make moves if we wish to. I also like that it is hard to totally re work your core based on the rating system, unless you are just going to sell off guys like I did with Semin and with Sekera.

The ice time stuff:

I feel that the ice time for homegrown players is a little low at 7 minutes. Maybe should make them have 10 minutes ice time to start, and for C rated players in year 2...12 minutes,

B rated to 17-18 minutes and limit A rated to 23 is good. A rated should have to play min 19 minutes.

THat makes you think a TON more about who you use as your core players, and keep on your roster as you go through the season.

But...that being said my feelings on that may just be the makeup of the CAnes team, with B rated players who can perform at top line levels (Skinner, Lindholm, Faulk,Murphy, Sekera)

It may not be the same on other teams, however...I feel that if you are using a core..you should have to use the core.

Maybe make it that for your core you have to name

at least 4 forwards, at least 3 defensemen, at least 1 goalie. Easily enough done at the start.

Also...GAMES PLAYED is too low for all of them. If you are naming a guy homegrown, you should not be able to play him in only 35 games,and send back and forth to minors etc. You should have to play him in over half the games.

C rated players hould have to play 60 games, B rated 65 games and A rated 70.

Yeah injury will come into play there....but that should be the goal.

I mean let's use Gerbe as an example. You name him to your core, and if he does not get injured as a B player, you only have to play him in so few games and so few minutes at 15, that it does not absolutely kill you when he sucks. which he does. But...if you have to ply him in 65 games......at 18 minutes he needs to be on a PP unit and 2nd line which totally screws you up. I like that.


UFA-love that we can, but that it is very limited. Especially with Carolina and the salary structure on the team.

I think this was an awesome job and a ton of work for you. Well done B72!111


I have really enjoyed playing with the rules.

When's the next challenge gonna be? There will probably be new NHL rosters by then.

Thanks, Batdad. I'll take your thoughts into consideration. I did try to make the game play requirements fairly easy. I wanted to focus more on ATOI than games played but wanted to include the GP just to keep things honest. They could probably do with a little adjusting.

Any ideas on how to adjust the tier rankings for players not listed? I suppose one idea would be to rate more players. I think I used an export of the 2013-2014 rosters and had it include players under contract to NHL teams. Maybe I'll have to take another look at the editor and see if I can get a bigger list to rate?

Oh and CJ, I'd love to have the next challenge coincide with new rosters but I have no idea what the schedule looks like for the roster team's next release and don't want to put any pressure on anyone.

Yeah,wondering if all players who are signed and all players who are unsigned into the NHL should be rated. NHL UFAs like Kovalchuk who comes back to the show (played with Malkin and Crosby for 4 years in my game) do not matter because the studs there are generally all A players, and would not be available to sign most of the time until that one year way in the future. YeAr 3? I forget.

-Some guys maybe need to have rating adjusted for how they work in the actual game of EHM. Gerbe for example. Maybe you keep him or someone does if he is rated a C player. Just a random thought.

Ice time/game played adjustments would be coool.

Again, this is totally up to you as you are the challenge master, and going through each and every player is really not easy and very time consuming.

batdad wrote:Again, this is totally up to you as you are the challenge master, and going through each and every player is really not easy and very time consuming.

The players are also being re-rated so it wouldn't be any good to do it with the old db

Good point. I won't re-do the tiers until you guys are done with the player re-rating.

As for some of the players like Gerbe, I'm a bit torn on that. On one hand, I see your point and how somebody might keep/use that player if they were a lower tier. On the other hand, not all Tier B players are equal. Some you might Tier A performance out of. Others might not really cut it. Should that be part of the challenge? Picking out players that can perform up to their tier? Then again, I definitely understand how under-sized players really don't perform up to their attributes in EHM. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

bruins72 wrote:Oh and CJ, I'd love to have the next challenge coincide with new rosters but I have no idea what the schedule looks like for the roster team's next release and don't want to put any pressure on anyone.

The NHL rosters are basically done, I'm just doing small changes here and there.

I agree on the tiers not covering enough, or dealing with flops. It feels almost gamey throwing in 7th round picks to balance trades via the rules. I also think on that there should also be a lower end of the draft picks traded, where I will admit I've used 7th rounders when it says x-round or lower to stay within the rules. My trading frustration has been C tier guys both ways- guys that teams value higher and I could use with as a 'B' in a fair deal but can't within the rules, or that I have a C that's worth much more and I can't get a fair return. (Connor Carrick in my game is being valued higher than Semin in trades, but he's a C so I can't really use him like a guy that teams think is a future top D man)

I didn't/won't get far enough for the tier A year, but I've found the B tier only UFA's restrictive, I can't really sign a quick fix (which in one way is the goal, and that worked out). C waivers also frustrated me (and frustration sometimes means the challenge rules are as restrictive as they should be) as nobody of value after the first year is a C level on waivers.

I second all of Batdad's last post of feedback, really good points. I'm not going to lie, I've gotten Rask and McClement to the 45 and 35 game mark and let them rot after that in season 3, I don't think that was the intention of the rules, but with sub 6 performances every couple of games...

I can say I actually liked the pyramid from the old system more than the tiers for UFA/waivers. But I like the tier system better for trading.

Lastly, I wasn't a huge fan of the first season homegrown (which ended up being Rask). Some read the rules well and planned out to sign a prospect out of the gate when starting their game to do it, but I'd rather see the first season have to be someone starting under contract, to keep idiots like me from being stuck when the realize too late that they should've signed prospects now for season 2 homegrowns. I'll not make that mistake again, but I wouldn't want that to turn people off.

I posted my thoughts in the other thread about the rules but since the next one is going to start soon and its being asked here...

First let me say I really do enjoy the rule changes as it gives more freedom than before so we all don't have the same team.

-I like having to have core players
- I like having to have homegrown players

My biggest peave seems to be the tiers based on draft pick as it is unrealistic.

Lets say you take over a bad team, you get a good first overall pick, why on earth do you have to give him first/second lines minutes as an A tier!? That was super frustrating for me This encourages you to NOT use your "Best" players as your homegrown because of "strategy" and instead becomes "who is the best C tier player I can stick in there for 30 games and then get rid of him". All home growns should start as only B tiers as far as playing time.

This in turn also carries over to UFA and trades, where a player may not be THAT good, but because they were a high draft pick they are all of a sudden an A tier making them near unobtainable. I believe if was Brayden McNabb (could be wrong don't quote me) who is a first round pick so he is an A tier and I couldn't sign him even though his performance is nowhere near someone like Crosby/Kane...who are also A tiers. Same with foreigners like Radulov/Zherdev who would be good "quick fix" guys.

It did not effect me but honestly I don't like the ice time rules- itseither A) is lenient enough to not matter (currently) or B) is hard to achieve becoming a micro-manage pain in the butt. Keeping it at GP is better and it should be higher.

For example let us pick our home grown player and make him play 60 games or w/e, forget about ice time, he's learning! The important thing is to get him in your line up not worry about if he is an A or B tier and aw rubbish now you have to bump Jordan Staal off the second line so your rookie can get more time. That's unrealistic. Playing lower drafted guys who are in theory "worse" is just wrong to me.

Also something that has bothered me, LET ME TRADE DRAFT PICKS MY FIRST YEAR seriously, if I am rebuilding a team, why can't I trade someone like Semin my first year for a first round pick to HELP going forward? (or second round pick, w/e). I really enjoy the simulation of scouting/drafting and seeing a guy develop in two/three years (for a forward, defense is kind of broken) and if it is a bad team I don't see why we can't get a head start. Maybe not allowed to sign a UFA entering season 2 if you traded for a draft pick in season 1? Just a balancing thought.

Everyone has said UFA is restrictive as well, I don't' think it is the rules fault but just how the DB works this time around after roster updates. Instead of tiers I would rather just have it be a dollar value like before. Will X player sign for $3m? then he's yours. Two players at $?1.5 they're yours. For example I am at the point where I can sign an A tier, I was excited because there was lots of good guys going to be available...well they all signed extensions making this "bonus" useless to me.

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I'll take these thoughts into consideration.

That being said, I don't have a new challenge quite ready to go yet. I've been busy with the holidays and work. I'm just now starting to think about EHM again. I was also hoping to wait for a a new DB before starting a new challenge.

Is anyone still playing the current challenge? Would anyone like me to extend the Hurricanes challenge for a bit while we're waiting to kick off a new one?

So I've gone through all of the NHL and AHL players under NHL contract and re-did their Tiers using a little more relaxed standard than I did the last time. Right now this is where things stand

Tier A: 102 Skaters 29 Goaltenders
Tier B: 333 Skaters 31 Goaltenders
Tier C: 828 Skaters 90 Goaltenders

For skaters, I tried to mostly go with legit 1st liners (on any team) and top pair defensemen in Tier A. For goalies, I went with the better starting goaltenders. In Tier B, I tried to include 2nd line forwards, better 3rd line forwards, 2nd pair defensemen, and better 3rd pairing defensemen. Everyone in Tier C is pretty much depth players. This should leave a lot of wiggle room for trades. I think it also makes the ATOI requirements a little easier (not that I thought they were too strict before). I might still tweak those a little bit to ensure players are usable without being overused (like people logging close to 30 minutes a game with their top forwards!).

I'm trying to get my hands on the info for the junior players and NHL prospects so I can assign player tiers there too and hopefully make things with a little better. After that, I'll tweak the standards for players still left without a tier (or new players).This should all address most of the issues that were brought up. Unfortunately, you'll still have to look up a player's tier when making a trade but you should have a fairly good idea of what it's going to be based on just looking at the player.