EHM The Blue Line

Recently I've had someone post in the comments of my DB that they are having issues with AI GMs not paying the contract demands of star players when they hit UFA status, this has led to some star players retiring early or taking massive pay-cuts in August. This is happening on clubs with plenty of cap space, I was wondering if any research has been done to get AI GMs to be more aggressive during the early stages of the UFA window with star players (170+ CA). Interestingly enough goaltenders seem to sign just fine and mostly get their demands met. In the finance screen for the league the same max contract limit is set for all three positions, not sure if the wage spread factor comes into play at all with this issue or the club finance 'cash' setting? I haven't inspected the users save-game yet to examine the contract count or financial status of the league yet, hopefully it's just something as silly as that but wanted to raise the topic anyways.

Any insight would be appreciated, I did some searching across the forum but couldn't really draw any clear answers.

I don't know how the game is programmed but I have noticed the same. I would think with goalies it plays a part that there is a very limited number of good goalies in the player pool, so the star goalies will mostly always get picked. As for the star skaters who are getting a little older, I would take a guess; if the teams who have cap space for them have a team alreadt built where they're having nearly the same player quality with significantly cheaper players, they are hesitant to sign an aging star. Perhaps it's due to the risk involved in being able to trade them away if needed, perhaps the AI is just geared towards building more towards the future if they have that option.

Then again, with some databases people are using there is also the complain that aging stars often end up playing too long and that the teams suffer for it. I guess there are two sides to the issue.

Personally I think when star players hit 35+ years of age, they should take their age into consideration when deciding how much money they want for their next contract (I mean right when they hit UFA status, not only after months of getting no offers). If these veteran stars were more reasonable in their wage demands that would balance things out both ways, I think.

Yea I think the 30+ factor is definitely a factor here, and I am still waiting on the save game to really explore the issue.

Bump the player reputation based on actual PA? But I say this without really knowing so I might be wrong since I don't even know if reputation comes into play salary.