Challenge Questions & Feedback Thread

[bruins72]

I'm fine with switching the rules around challenge by challenge, maybe we should make the next challenge have really easy rules since we have alot of new EHM players now that it's on steam, just to get them involved, then we can go back to and updated version of these rules for the challenge after?

I've been thinking more and more about the idea of doing exactly that. Maybe a combination of changing getting rid our established rules and adding in something like being forced to trade away older players?

[Peter_Doherty]

Just make VERY simple rules for the next challenge and do it in NHL to make it as easy and understandable as possible for the new people. Then you can use those 2 months thinking about how to tweak the current rules, or redo them all together, thats up to you

[Unknown User]

my ideas are:
season 1
you can trade any pick or player 1-1 for an unsigned player on another teams prospect list for some flexibility so everyone can have a slightly different roster.
no other signings or trades season 1
season 2 and on
you have to trade 1 of your 3 oldest players for any draft picks you can get as soon as the new season starts. so have a window from july 1-10 that player must be dealt.
no restrictions on the picks coming back it is also difficult to get a lot of return now anyway.
for signings and other trades i have been playing that I can't trade for or sign anyone.
I think if you have it like this it will have the same effect as the current challenge roles on your player development if not more so.
It really challenges you to play with a very young and in my case unskilled team.
for the other rules on non player staff I know you can just sign your assistants as scouts or assistant gm and just fire them anyway so might want to make it open because you need the coaches to develop players properly.
I remember that buffalo challenge with the worst head coach stats ever lol... as soon as 6 months hit he was gone.

[Peter_Doherty]

Erik Gustafsson is C, right?

[Kopi]

About the rules I agree the challenge needs to be hard or harder ...as i read on forum how one guy for Kane traded like 5 future 1x round picks etc it just made me sick but hey its his game and he can play it in any way he want (he didnt stop just at Kane..). What i think for people (specialy for us that are not native english speakers) that have problem is with understanding them sometimes. Maybe a spread sheet with dates from when to when is UFA signing period , then Trades period etc would help a lot (had to do it myself to get some things clear).

1st season should stay as it is as here you can see how can you adapt to players you have and who knows to read the team the best (thats a challenge itself).

But once KHL is "playable" and a Challenge should be set there I guess rules will have to change a bit

[bruins72]

About the rules I agree the challenge needs to be hard or harder ...as i read on forum how one guy for Kane traded like 5 future 1x round picks etc it just made me sick but hey its his game and he can play it in any way he want (he didnt stop just at Kane..). What i think for people (specialy for us that are not native english speakers) that have problem is with understanding them sometimes. Maybe a spread sheet with dates from when to when is UFA signing period , then Trades period etc would help a lot (had to do it myself to get some things clear).

I never thought about adding those things to the spreadsheet. If it's something that would help, we can definitely do that.

I totally agree about the crazy trades with too many assets stacked up. Superteams get boring quickly.

1st season should stay as it is as here you can see how can you adapt to players you have and who knows to read the team the best (thats a challenge itself).

This is one of the things I definitely want to keep in place. You need that first season to really get to know your team and the assets you have. Sure, with the Flyers challenge, that really turned me off (that and not having a 1st round pick). But overall, I feel that's a big part of the challenges.

But once KHL is "playable" and a Challenge should be set there I guess rules will have to change a bit

That's one I'd need a lot of help with. I know absolutely nothing about the KHL. We'd need somebody to setup an "overview" or something like that explaining how things work in that league. Then we'd need somebody familiar with playing that league to help form the rules. Of course, we could go with more relaxed rules in a challenge like that because so many of us would be new to it.

One thing I was wanting to see how people felt about was the challenge trade windows. I'm kind of finding the July 16th - October 14 no-trade period a bit of an annoyance when I don't really think it needs to be. Do we really gain that much of an advantage by trading during that period? It's been so long since I've played no using those rules that I don't really know anymore. If we're doing a more relaxed and simplified challenge next time around, I'd like to throw out those no-trade periods and also the signing windows for free agents (both restricted and unrestricted). I'm also thinking we could do without the staff restrictions (coaches and scouts). If you were a GM taking over an organization, there would be a lot of personnel turnover. Plus, if we're supposed to be building a team and developing young talent, you'd want the right kind of staff to develop them.

The main thing I'm not sure about is trades. I don't want to go back to the old days where we severely limited the trading to a point that it took a lot of the fun out. I also recognize that the current tier structured trade rules can be a bit of a pain because you've always got to look players up. I'd really like some feedback here.

[batdad]

Trade UFA windows--absolutely try and toss them out.
Staff stuff--I think we can open it up a bit for sure, not sure about all of it. Even Shanahan took a year before he canned absolutely everyone.
Trades-absolutely not go back to open completely. But...limiting # of draft picks, and no prospect trading allowed to move is fine by me.

I have loved the tiering of the players, has for the most part made trades become more realistic and less taking advantage of AI for sure. But...we do not know how the AI works for sure, and how much advantage can be taken in a challenge in the new version

The tier structure is only a pain because it makes you think about whether a trade is worth it, or if it is a trade for the sake of a trade. It makes it hard for sure, but who says trading should be easy? Again though, think we should try without it for a bit.

The Roman Josi example is a great one...impossible for deal for him as he is Tier B, and no way they take a Tier B guy for him, or a Tier C guy and 4th round pick. But in real life would Nashville actually deal him for anything the FLyers have outside the A level players? So yeah...I think it is great, but at the same time understand the need to loosen up for the new people. And lord knows I may have a ton of fun trading for all the superstars. It has been A LONG LONG time since i have.

[Peter_Doherty]

Yeah, i love the Tier structure and i think that should be part of the challenges in the future, but i do think we can skip it for the next just to simplify it for the new guys.

[Kopi]

Tier is a very good thing so it should stay as it is.

About KHL i think Alessandro will help you Bruins ... to be honest im short as well there but that might be a challenge itself for all of us as basicly noone knows the league that well and players. Still think Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia) would be fun to lead in KHL..totaly untraditional hockey country that have lots of canadians with croatian roots and very few homegrown players...oh here are challenges just calling (become a KHL champ, have at least 3 or 4 Croatian born players in top two lines, etc.

One more thing about maybe next NHL challenge..have you every try it like that to sim one season and take over the team that drafted McDavid and build a team around him with rules that are already set (so 1st season would be actualy 2nd season)?

[batdad]

For KHL challenge--really need to wait until it is at least 50% to Alessandro liking. I am not sure that he can like 75% of what it looks like in game, so at least have to wait til it is 1/2 right.

[Peter_Doherty]

The 12 months contracted does that count for AI players aswell? I'm trading Giroux and i can get a deal for the #1 pick in 2018 Oliver Wahlstrom instead of just a 1st rounder 2019, he just signed with Blues (July 4th), is that trade allowed?

Another question, is it OK if i take the screenshot of my trades on July 4th or do i have to go back and take it on July 1st?

[batdad]

I believe both are fine.

[Peter_Doherty]

Aight, i will proceed, just tell me if i need to add extra screenshots or something

[batdad]

Save the game prior to the trade, and then again after in a different save so that if B72 says no...you are good. As for the July 1 screenshot....well July 4 likely has to do since already past July 1.

[Peter_Doherty]

Yeah, i still have one save state before the draft though so i could go back and redo that and take a screenshot at July 1st if needed I'll just save under a new name so i still have all the old save states just incase

[bruins72]

One more thing about maybe next NHL challenge..have you every try it like that to sim one season and take over the team that drafted McDavid and build a team around him with rules that are already set (so 1st season would be actualy 2nd season)?

I haven't tried doing it for one season before. One time I simmed several years into the future and we had a challenge with that team. I think it was the Penguins, IIRC. Most current NHLers had retired. Lots of regens and former prospects. Would anyone else be interested in this? I think it's got potential. I also wouldn't mind seeing a situation where we have to unload several veterans and move forward with youth.

[Unknown User]

I think for challenges if we don't use a presaved game for it then all the prospects will be random and different. I would prefer to use a saved game for challenges instead of everyone starting a new game with randomized stats on many players.

[bruins72]

The 12 months contracted does that count for AI players aswell? I'm trading Giroux and i can get a deal for the #1 pick in 2018 Oliver Wahlstrom instead of just a 1st rounder 2019, he just signed with Blues (July 4th), is that trade allowed?

Another question, is it OK if i take the screenshot of my trades on July 4th or do i have to go back and take it on July 1st?

You should be good.

[Peter_Doherty]

I have an idea for the future, we should be able to swap out guys from our core for extra HGs if we want, so we can actually make a retool if we want to. Came across this problem when i tried to rebuild Flyers, i still had so many fowards in my core (partly my fault ofc), but if i could have just swapped Read, Couturier etc from my core and add more HGs i could have maybe made it work. Just some food for thought.

[batdad]

I like saved game idea as well. Just not sure if I will figure out how to get it in my version of EHM...transferring them around possible in EHM EA?

I like the dump your vets as well. Can you imagine a Canucks challenge without the twins, Miller, Hamhuis, Bieksa, Burrows Vrbata et al.

Holy christmas

[bruins72]

Okay, so I started a game unemployed and went on vacation. Until April 15th. Somehow I got hired by an ECHL team even though I said not to apply for jobs. Whatever. So the NHL regular season is over. The Coyotes have the worst record in the league, with the Sabres, Oilers, and Devils following them. So here is the question... if we were to start a challenge from this save (very easy to do Batdad... even for an old man that yells at clouds), would people want it to be simmed forward to the point where we find out who won the draft lottery? Or would we want to pick a team at this point and start scouting the draft. I believe we find out who wins the lottery too close to the draft to get any scouting done. I'm not sure if the team's existing scouts would have that scouting info available to us when we take over. If we take over at April 15th, that's plenty of time to send out an extensive scouting search on the draft but then we risk not getting that #1 overall pick and we're bound to have folks picking at different positions.

Opinions?

[batdad]

Yes the draft lottery is about 10 days before the draft.

I think start it at the end of season, when not in playoffs, so we have the lottery. But do not let us fire any personnel and hire new ones until July 1.

But...let us make one trade at the draft as long as dude is over 30.

Absolutely not allowed to start with Oilers. Taylor Hall is a beast, and so is RNH really. I would look to start with Devils as they are 500 years old on average, and maybe force us to deal Cory Schneider.

Or like I Said start with Vancouver and twins Hammer and Miller cannnot be on the roster come Opening Day.

We have done all 3 of the other teams I believe, so it would be cool with Vancouver without any of the big guns.

Twins would have to go in a package for a pick and a player. LOL

[Peter_Doherty]

Vancouver would be interesting if they missed playoffs, with some forced ruleset. I don't think we should be one of the teams you wrote, take one of the teams that just missed playoffs and force us into a retool. Sharks, Canucks or some team like that.

[bruins72]

Canucks finished 12th in the league. I'd rather not do the Devils since we just used them recently.

This is what the NHL standings look like...

http://1drv.ms/1PcL8Fc

Of the non-playoff teams, 3 interest me with the type of challenge we're talking about. I'm looking at the Wild, Senators, and the Panthers. I propose we make it so that EVERYONE 30 years or older must be traded before the draft. The incoming players must be 25 or under. Also allow for draft picks? Unsigned prospects? None of your players under 30 may be traded in the first season. Moving forward, make it that anyone 29 or over MAY be traded freely. You're allowed to trade away 1 player under 29. Season 3 the age shifts to 28 and so on. The player(s) you acquire MUST always be younger than the player(s) traded away, with the exception of that 1 player under that season's age.

For example... the Panthers.

Before the draft... must trade Jagr, Mitchell, Thornton, Luongo, Campbell, Heatley, MacKenzie, Kopecy, Boyes, Jokinen, O'Brien, Upshall, and Montoya. Anyone not traded by the draft must be released for nothing. Draft day deals are allowed but not once the draft has started. So this team will be pretty bare. Older players assigned to the minors can be kept but can't be recalled to the NHL roster. The next season you can trade away anyone who is 29 years old or older. With this team, that will be Bolland (and a couple guys in the minors). You'd have to trade him for somebody 28 years old or younger. You could also keep him. Now let's say Rocco Grimaldi doesn't fit your plans. Well you've got your one trade that you're allowed involving a younger player. He's 22 but he's a smurf. You don't want him. So you trade him away for somebody younger than 29 years old. Then in the next season, that age slides to 28. You can keep or trade anyone 28 or older for someone 27 or younger. You can also trade away one player 27 or younger for another player 27 or younger (or a pick). Let's say you trade Jesse Blacker for a 5th round pick. And so on. The next season the age slides to 27.

What do you guys think? I'm just brainstorming here. I haven't tested this.

[batdad]

Hmm.... I don't know. I like the idea of dumping all the 30 plus guys to begin with. But I think then we should be allowed to build, and not have to deal the guys when they get to whatever age. Or am I misunderstanding? I Read this as though every year the oldest guys you are allowed to have get a year younger?

To me....need to just dump them all, and then rebuild.

As for acquiring picks....only one of the aforementioned 30 years should garner a pick of any value, and that is Campbell, and maybe Roberto but his salary makes him impossible to trade.

So I am thinking that we can trade for picks if we want to, but should only really be dealing for guys 25 and younger to rebuild the team, and then go from there.

Again have not looked into it.

I would much rather use a team we have never used than a team we have. although I do understand being in the lottery makes things interesting. Some will win it, some won't. Interesting idea.