Player Potential / Development / Progression

[bruins72]

You can definitely raise physical attributes. While developing prospects, you can see their strength, stamina, and skating skills usually go up by 1-2 points each per season if they're getting good training and playing experience. I've also seen certain mental attributes go up over time for young players, like Anticipation and Teamwork. Most don't change though.

[bruins72]

So I was thinking about how rookie development camp works in real life and how we can take some of that and apply it to the game. For example, the Bruins held a week long rookie/prospect development camp back in early July. They invited all of their young players who hadn't played a full season in at least the AHL. Basically, it was all of their unsigned prospects and a couple guys that joined their AHL affiliate late in the season after their junior or college season had ended. They even included NCAA players, who were allowed to join the team for this camp even though they're not allowed (by NCAA rules) to go to training camp. So the prospects spend the week at this camp working with the team's trainers, coaches, and other staff. They do lots of team building exercises, physical conditioning, and drills. It's supposed to give the players an understanding of what the NHL game requires and it gives the team's staff a good look at the players. At the end of camp, the staff will have a good idea of what the player might need to work on and they'll tell him during an exit interview at the completion of camp.

So here is my idea for the game. We have an option for the team to have a development camp for rookies and unsigned prospects. You can choose which players you want to invite. You can invite any of your unsigned prospects, signed prospects that were sent back to Junior in the previous season, and any rookies with less than 20 games of AHL/NHL duty. You can even invite a couple undrafted prospects you might want to take a look at. It runs for a week. There will be scrimmages but mostly it'll just be a news item about what they did that day. At the end, your staff will provide you with a simple report (similar to the ones you get at the end of training camp in EHM) and it will include areas that the player really needs to work on. Then, you will be able to give the player instructions/suggestions on what to work on over the rest of the summer. You can tell him to hit the gym and put on some more weight/muscle for strength. You can tell him that he needs to work with a power skating coach to get better speed. You might say that he needs to work on building his stamina. Stuff like that.

I would also have a similar setup for the end of training camp. When training camp ends young players go back to their junior team or get sent to the AHL, you'll have an exit interview (a simple news item with button to respond to it) where you can tell them why they didn't make the team. It could be that their skills aren't ready or they're not strong enough, or not fast enough. Whatever the case. You can tell them why and tell them what they need to work on.

Following this same line of thought, at the end of the NHL season or playoffs, the teams will often have an exit interview with the players before they leave for the summer. They'll find out where the player thinks he fits on the team and they can tell the player what kind of role they see him in. They can also suggest the player works on something over the summer. Also, when the season ends and the players leave for the summer, I don't think we should be able to make them practice. Any practice that the players do during this time is on their own. That's something that could be determined by the player's mental attributes.

Does that all make sense?

[dabo]

I think this would be very nice to include at some point.

[A9L3E]

It's supposed to give the players an understanding of what the NHL game requires

Maybe it could make a big difference to player's morale if he wouldn't do well in youth camp. He would get upset or he would get a huge boost to make his game better. Attribute which would control this could well be e.g. Determination.

When training camp ends young players go back to their junior team or get sent to the AHL, you'll have an exit interview (a simple news item with button to respond to it) where you can tell them why they didn't make the team.

I think it should also be optional to control it yourself or leave it partly or fully to your assistant, because I don't have the patience to select the right reason why I left them out from the team and that could easily make the player think that I left him out for wrong reasons.

Also, when the season ends and the players leave for the summer, I don't think we should be able to make them practice. Any practice that the players do during this time is on their own.

I think you should then have a power to control how long the team would be in summer holiday.

[bruins72]

It's supposed to give the players an understanding of what the NHL game requires

Maybe it could make a big difference to player's morale if he wouldn't do well in youth camp. He would get upset or he would get a huge boost to make his game better. Attribute which would control this could well be e.g. Determination.

I think the morale boost/penalty should would fit better in the training camp, not development camp. The whole purpose of development camp is to learn. It's not something where you can really fail and make a bad showing as much as training camp.

When training camp ends young players go back to their junior team or get sent to the AHL, you'll have an exit interview (a simple news item with button to respond to it) where you can tell them why they didn't make the team.

I think it should also be optional to control it yourself or leave it partly or fully to your assistant, because I don't have the patience to select the right reason why I left them out from the team and that could easily make the player think that I left him out for wrong reasons.

That makes sense. Maybe make it so you could set it to "automatic"?

The way I see it, the info you get about what they need to work on would only be as accurate as your staff's skills. Also, you could have multiple choices, one of which could just be "team depth at that position".

Also, when the season ends and the players leave for the summer, I don't think we should be able to make them practice. Any practice that the players do during this time is on their own.

I think you should then have a power to control how long the team would be in summer holiday.

Hmmm... I wonder if in the case of the NHL if that is something that the teams don't really get to decide. That may be something laid out in the CBA.

[empach]

I like this exit interview idea. I think the key to this will be how players react to what they are told. Some players are told they need to work on something and they go out and they really work at it and improve, others won't.
And certain players won't react well to being demoted and the reason why.

What determines how they react should be their mental attributes. I'd have to see the list of what we're using and how but stuff like Determination for sure, maybe ego, professionalism, and temperament.

[dave1927p]

I like this exit interview idea. I think the key to this will be how players react to what they are told. Some players are told they need to work on something and they go out and they really work at it and improve, others won't.
And certain players won't react well to being demoted and the reason why.

What determines how they react should be their mental attributes. I'd have to see the list of what we're using and how but stuff like Determination for sure, maybe ego, professionalism, and temperament.

yeah that would be awesome. Say you draft a 3rd overall forward and tell him to work on strengthening (as all rookies have to) and work alot on defence (backchecking and whatnot). Instead he ignores you and decides to try increasing his shooting because goals are all he wants I see work ethic and perhaps teamwork being involved as well.

[dabo]

I'd have to see the list of what we're using and how but stuff like Determination for sure, maybe ego, professionalism, and temperament.

There is a list in the "Player generator" thread.

[23qwerty]

Not sure if this has been said, but I think younger players should be able to select a player as his mentor and that might help raise certain attributes that the mentor is skilled in?

[Alessandro]

Well I think that coaches should do that, like at FM

[Rock]

Hello!

Dabo, amazing idea about making new game! I registered just to be a part of it
You actualy led me to pick up programing again after few years of hiatus and focusing on other things...

Ok, I must say I didn't quite read everything whats in here, so I hope I'm not completely out of line...
I have a bit different idea of player development that is used in ehm, fm type games.

Lets just say we scratch PA (potential ability) as we know it. Instead of that, we introduce an attribute named TALENT, and we assign to that attribute some values (doesn't matter which right now - but let's say 1-20).

Now, for the sake of the argument, let's discuss which talent should be where:
1-5: Minor leagues
6-9: AHL
11-14: 3rd/4th liners - forwards + 5-7th defensmen + backup goalies
15-18: top 6 forwards and top 4 defensmen + lead goalies
19-20: superstars

BUT no...Talent is only natural/given by birth "attribute"! There should be posibility for player with talent 4, to get to NHL stage, or for player with superstar potential to get only to AHL/low liner NHL stage..

Now, I DID NOT make any formulas or anything, so this right now is just brainstorming, take a look at the picture below, and under it, i will try to explain the attributes..



TALENT: Given in birth talent for game of hockey!

BLOOM: I like concept of blooming in several sports simulation (specialy webgames - like TrophyHockey - although it's not completely made yet there, it's complete in their football simulation)
The concept is something like that: not every player "blooms"/becomes of age at the same time, some are early bloomers, some are normal and some are late - one will have the most of his NHL development made from 15-20 yo, and be able to play in NHL league from ~18yo further,
some - normal bloomers will make the most of their development from 18-23yo, and be ready to play from lets say 22-23 yo
and some will be late coming into the NHL 25-26 years...and they will have their development peaked at 21-26 yo
(years are examples to make a point-although i hope i didn't make things to complicated)

The main idea behind bloom is: Players develop each at different times.

Work Ethic/ Workrate: Another very important atribute regarding player development... One player with low talent, but superb work ethic could become a lot better player with this - you know the frase "Practice makes better".
Also player with high natural talent, but low work ethic, could fail to make anything out of him..

Motivation: Tied closely with work ethic, player with high motivation will work harder,.. and with low motivation, he could become stagnant in development..

Ambition: Another mental attribute-tied with motivation/work ethic.. Example: Player with low ambition get to AHL, and his development slows down, his motivation and work ethic declines due to this ..
Another example: Player with high ambition gets to AHL and his motivation and work ethic increase, while his development gets a nice boost.

Injuries: Possible injuries in development time, can offcourse hamper skill growth..

Youth academy & Coaches ability: It should matter highly what kind of coaches/facilities players has during his development.

Physical Attributes: With that I mean specialy heigh and weight... Although this shouldn't exactly limit development of player... But although highly skilled, very small or lightweight players have very low probability of making it in the pro world...


One more possible attribute:
Quickness of learning: How quickly player develops, learns things/skills...


Don't get hung on words, listen to the message (english isn't my mothers tongue )
Every feedback is welcome,.. dabo if you like my brainstorming, we can continue doing it with the help of the community

Now i'm off to a bit more c#

Cheers,
Rock

[YZG]

Hi Rock, you seem to have thought of the matter a fair bit, great that you join the debate! Some other people (me included!) have registered in order to participate, that certainly demonstrates how much of a new hockey sim is needed

1-5: Minor leagues
6-9: AHL
11-14: 3rd/4th liners - forwards + 5-7th defensmen + backup goalies
15-18: top 6 forwards and top 4 defensmen + lead goalies
19-20: superstars

I really think this scale doesn't not correctly represents adequately the global skills of players worldwide. AHLers, KHLers and players from the SEL and SM-Liiga are much better than the range they fall into; actually, same goes for most players in the DEL and EBEL. Such scaling assumes there's as big a gap between the best and worse NHL players than between the best and worse non-NHL players worldwide... that sure isn't realistic.

- YZG

[Rock]

YZG, these numbers are there just to illustrate some things,.. actually whole point of my post was that they wouldn't matter so much anyway...

I didn't went into any calculations, just simply theoretical point of view

[empach]

I really like your ideas Rock. You've accounted for most of the things that affect player development. Here are a few that I think may be good to add:

Pressure: the ability of the player to deal with expectations and pressure of playing in higher leagues including dealing with the media spotlight.

Adaptability: the ability to adapt to new surroundings and situations. Such as being away from home (especially for foreign players), increased talent of new leagues, learning languages, dealing with new teammates and coaches, etc.

Performance: the player's actual performance in his career, probably weighted to the most recent seasons. A simple reality of a player is that no matter all the other factors that we've listed, none of them matter if the player doesn't actually play well. Of course talent and the other factors largely determine how a player does perform, so it is a give and take relationship.


You and some other posts I've read have had me wondering if we do need both current ability and potential ability. I think the answer to that question lies within how the game is coded. The advantage of the two separate attributes is that they give the program two different variables to refer to for whatever tasks it needs to preform, one that reflects the player as of now, and the other for what they can be in the future. Both numbers are meant to be hidden and not seen by the player. Whether we actually need to have both, I think only Dabo can answer right now.

Either way I like all the discussion about player development that has occured lately.

[bruins72]

Very interesting idea, Rock! And I totally agree with what empach added to it. That would make player development more interesting. I know you're just throwing numbers out there as an example but I do understand where YZG is coming from. "Talent" might need to be expanded upon. Still, the core idea is very interesting!

[dabo]

Very interesting Rock, keep the discussion going since this is a very important part of the game and one that I don't have a clear picture in my head of.

[bruins72]

Could Rock's idea be used with PA? For example, could all of these things affect the PA value positively or negatively? To use this idea, you wouldn't necessarily need to throw away PA. Your PA could "adjust" over time due to these other influences. Or would that just be missing Rock's whole point?

[Beukeboom]

The question is what use would PA have then if it can change? Pa for me is the hard maximum a player cna develop too, and its a horrible basic concept in itself, by introducing something like talent, that influences development i can see now reaosn to have soemthing like PA at all. Just think of it IRL, a player might have talent but never use it to max. it because of horrible games, career decisions etc. but there will never be a point for a player when suddenly he reached a plateau whre he couldnt improve, i mean he might have physical constraints, so perhaps a physical PA for every physical attribute might make sense, but he surely always can improve his slapper or something. The thing is more that atts in game more or less is how the hockey world looks at him and after a gorgeous season everyone would say, wow what a great player he has a huge finishing move or whatever he can go places...no one would say: Yeah but you know i gues she has some hidden karam or soemthing that will never make him good even if he scored 50 goals this year. Thats why i am for a much more performance based attribute development, as i mentioned in the draft thread. All in all a player is judged by his peformance, if Taylor Hall puts up 10 points he will be a bust, a worse version of Daigle and no one will want him for some hidden potential.

So i think there should be something that changes your attributes massively after each season or half season , from juniors to retirement. With overly talented guys getting some bonuses but mostly it should be based on performance. We could then also introduce special palyer types, perhaps "hard worker" that doesnt t loose physicals so easy, or we could leave talent out compeltely just base it on performance and give those bonuses out in player special attributes, like "very talented shooter" that gives them say +2 in slapshot everytime they would have improved one point there due to performance...if they dont perform they dont improve at all, so it would add great tactical aspects to your draft choices.
There could be "solid performers" who change atts only half as much based on performance, high risk talents who improve faste rin juniors bu also decrease faster if they do there, etc. etc. i guess you get my point. I think this would make development and drafting just awesome combined with special scouts talents to even find out those special attributes or not.


Heres a brainstorming formula for doing player half season and full season development based on the EHM att. system:

Full season numbers:

Lets say a real sucky player with lets say wrister 10 has scored 50 goals. Those 50 goals are checked against the important stats for it, in this case the wrister with 10 (same goes for anticipation etc, all relevant ones for scoring)

So 50 goals compared to 10 attribute strenght.

Thats a ration of 5 to 1.

This should give him a five time 50% chance (the lucky factor) to improve his wrister, so he could improve his wrister by 5 max. and 0 min.

Lets say he had a 20 slapper also, with 50 goals scored the ratio would be 2 to 5 and give him a 2.5 (rounded to 2 or 3) 50 percent chance his wrister gets worse.


Now i see that getting your slapper worse with 50 goals is a little hard. but you can always put in a balanicing factor, its just the basic principle.

Now lets say in example one our player was in junior as is judged as "very talented player" we said he should get +2 chances isntead of +1 that would mean our 10 wrister guy had 10 chances of 50 percent to imporve by 1 point ...this would mean he could go from 10 to 20 wrister in junior within a year or even half one....thats silly so we have to put in a factor based on league reputation that would get those things balanced again. So lets say just for example goal worth in juniors in 50% of NHL and we have him back to 5 chances of improvement.


I know this has to be balanced a lot , but as i said it would be just the basic setup. It would be especially interesting thought to see the step from juniors to NHL because your 50 goalscorer in juniors could get trouble keeping those up in the NHL and be seriously hurt in his development. So you better think twice if you bring him up. If you had soemone down that wasnt any special anyway he will probably maintain his atts on 4th line, but put your superscorer with greatly developed stats in juniors on your 4th or 3rd and he will surely have a very hard tiem to keep his atts up.

[23qwerty]

So the good players get better? How does that make any sense?
How are the late bloomers ever supposed to exist?

[Animal]

Yeah I don't think that makes any sense. And there are always one-season-wonders like Cheechoo who get to play one season with good linemates and score 60 goals but then they just disappear.

E: But I think player attributes should be tied with CA. I mean if player's all attributes are between 7 and 15, his CA shouldn't be 160 (this is possible in EHM if db is poorly done)

[YZG]

So i think there should be something that changes your attributes massively after each season or half season , from juniors to retirement. With overly talented guys getting some bonuses but mostly it should be based on performance. We could then also introduce special palyer types, perhaps "hard worker" that doesnt t loose physicals so easy, or we could leave talent out compeltely just base it on performance and give those bonuses out in player special attributes, like "very talented shooter" that gives them say +2 in slapshot everytime they would have improved one point there due to performance...if they dont perform they dont improve at all, so it would add great tactical aspects to your draft choices.
There could be "solid performers" who change atts only half as much based on performance, high risk talents who improve faste rin juniors bu also decrease faster if they do there, etc. etc. i guess you get my point. I think this would make development and drafting just awesome combined with special scouts talents to even find out those special attributes or not.

I think I get the principle, but I'm not sure it'd work well. Performance is not everything. Dany Roussin was big in the QMJHL but it was mainly because he played on a line with Sidney Crosby. He plays semi-pro nowadays. Many such exemples exist. The environment in which they play (powerhouse/crapfull team, linemates, etc) has an immense impact on a player's performances, and I have the impression that all of the Rimouski Oceanic players circa 2004 would have become NHL material because Sidney Crosby would have given them all at least partially undue performance bonuses with your proposal.


- YZG

[empach]

Well in a system like this performance would only be one part of their progression. Other things such as personality type etc would have to be taken into account. Like what Rock was showing above.

One thing I'm curious about is how the game would handle value in a system like this. If there's no way to track a player's upside (which is basically what pa is) then how will the game make decisions such as trades? Performance and draft position could work, but what about when a player like Joe Thornton has a poor rookie year? Will the game weight towards his high draft pick status?

In theory I think getting rid of PA could work, but there's a lot of complexity that will have to go into it.

[empach]

I was giving some thought to a theoretical performance/value engine today. It would be stored as 1-100 point number (though it could be reduced to 1-20) and would work like this:

You get a point grade for the level of hockey you played that year. Using North America for example:
Junior - 10 points
AHL - 20 points
NHL - 30 points
If you played half of the year in the NHL and the other half in the AHL you would have 15.
This would weigh the the level of the league played in. So a 18 year old playing in Sedish Elite league would get a bonus.

The next part would be actual on-ice performance. I didn't work out the specifics, but it would need to be complex and include points, goals, time on ice, time on special teams, faceoff percentage, plus/minus, penalties and just about anything you can think of. I imagine that the Rating in EHM was set up this way. For example purposes I've set that up as a grade.
A - 20
B - 10
C - 0
D - (-10)
F - (-20)
Again the actual numbers are just examples right now.

You'd gain bonuses and penalties for other things. Awards could grant a 10 point bonus. Penalities could include major injuries, slumps, and controversies. Salary/performance differential could play a role.

At the end of the year the game would sum up that number and compare it to last season's total. If it's higher then you'd receive a higher value rating and a bonus to the chance of increasing attributes.


This is just something I was thinking of I'm not even sure how much I like it. Actually it would probably work better as a value engine than a development engine.

[dave1927p]

one of the group things about out of the park baseball is the customization of progression and aging for players based on position.

I've had so much fun creating a league and changing these numbers every so often making the avg length of careers longer and shorter as i see fit, making pitchers peak at a higher age and retiring younger.

I think it would be great to have that customization in this type of game as well.

Things like:
Forward Aging: 1.2
Defence Aging: 1
Goalie Aging: 1

Forward Progression: 1
Defence Progression: 1.25
Goalie Progression: 1.5

The numbers all being customizable would be fantastic if possible..

[Forward]

That would be nice to have a kind of 'fantasy league mod'.
I'm not the head of the project but i think it could be implemented wouldn't be for now but on later versions, who knows.

I said this because the most important is to have the the main mod, franchise/distany, implemented before thinking on future.

But as programmer i said that idea isn't difficult to do