The Official TBL Practice Thread

[RomaGoth]

Flashy doesn't actually mean high Flair, it should, but it doesn't. That's what I thought it meant until I saw a lot of players with "meh" Flair have the descriptor. Flashy = mentals are the strongest part of his game, Quick = Physicals are the strongest part of his game, Skilled = Technicals are the strongest part of his game. In a lot of the players only described as "flashy/quick/skilled fwd" you can barely even tell which they should be, cause they tend to be jack of all trades with like 8-12 across the board. It also begs the question why the defenders don't get those.

I found this to be especially interesting. Do you have some concrete evidence, such as extensive testing, to prove this theory? I would love to see it if you do, as this could completely change how we scout, deploy, and train players.

[Shindigs]

Flashy doesn't actually mean high Flair, it should, but it doesn't. That's what I thought it meant until I saw a lot of players with "meh" Flair have the descriptor. Flashy = mentals are the strongest part of his game, Quick = Physicals are the strongest part of his game, Skilled = Technicals are the strongest part of his game. In a lot of the players only described as "flashy/quick/skilled fwd" you can barely even tell which they should be, cause they tend to be jack of all trades with like 8-12 across the board. It also begs the question why the defenders don't get those.

I found this to be especially interesting. Do you have some concrete evidence, such as extensive testing, to prove this theory? I would love to see it if you do, as this could completely change how we scout, deploy, and train players.

Just something I noticed over scouting many many players. Logic states "Quick" would mean good skater. But most players I find with it have like 10 acc and spe, which is laughable. But overall they tend to have more physicals for the average of their age than they do mentals and technicals. The ones with "skilled" tend to have above average technicals, not always total technicals. For example an offensive skilled forward might have above average "offensive" tech, but quite mediocre defensive tech. Presumably someone like nino could more easily compile the average mentals/tech/phys of large amounts of players to show it as irrefutable evidence (assuming it's correct). In several cases the player might be a "skilled" forward, but seem to have pretty bad technicals. In all the cases where I have picked up players like that they have shown more gain in the technicals department though. Since I play with hidden attributes these days I don't have any real up to date spreadsheets to pull from. This was mostly happening back in my previous 8.1 database save.

For me its just based on doing a lot of scouting with hidden attributes, meaning I have to read as much as possible into the scouting reports as I can. As well as always playing with a lot of players who fit a certain "mold". I know what attributes they should normally have in that mold at what age, and I've noticed that Flashy/Quick/Skilled Off Forwards always seem to be favoring that way. And it does make sense, less sense than flashy = flair, quick = acc/ska and skilled = stickhandling+deking. But if you oversimplify everything way beyond that it makes sense. And it fits what I've been seeing over 410 hours of playing the game (most of that time is AFK while doing things in spreadsheets and photoshop though) but of the acual real play time my focus is always scouting out unknown stars. I never buy expensive young players, I get the ones that are like <=10k $ and generally 25-33% of them get drafted to the NHL. So I'd like to think I've got a fairly good idea about how scouting works. hint: if you find someone with 5 star potential rating and the report card traits: ambitious, driven, iron willed all togehter, GET HIM! I've never seen a player grow like the goalie I had with that. He had back to back 4 month periods where he gained +2 in all his goalie attributes. Then the flippin' Sharks stole him, figures...at this point I should just rent a VIP lounge to the Sharks and Preds scouts. Cause they quite obviously live in my flippin' arena.

The reason I have so many players with Yellow (bright green in default colour scheme) skating attributes is that all my offensive forwards are Quick Offensive Forwards in this save. Partly because two of the scout snippets I tend to rate is the "possesses elite speed" (high spe, or potential for high spe) and "can turn on the afterburners"(high acc or potential for high acc) ones. That leads to close to 20/20 acc/spe on a fair few players. But really when it comes to scouting finesse forwards you can find really good ones without ever reading their full scout report. Just use this checklist:
1. Is he 5 star potential?
2. Is he compared to a current NHL player? (even "poor man's <insert good NHL player>" is fine)
3. Is the list of scout snippets longer than 3 lines on full screen 1080p?

If those 3 are true, it's almost guaranteed you have a winner on your hands. Never had one of those not get drafted low round 1.

At some point I should probably compile a list of what all the scout snippets that I know the meaning of actually means. But I keep forgetting, and I'd need a full list of all of them. Cause I would never remember all of them off the top of my head.

[Shindigs]

You guys should have a 3-way meeting with Riz
I eased up the practices a bit (as wrote earlier) and the conditioning problem is less of a problem, but still a problem. I don't get why some of my players are so off in conditioning, now, I may imagine that they are lazy or whatever (it's not the case probably, but I'll return to this later), but I think that if this was the case, the game should tell you. A coach can understand who practices and who doesn't have conditioning etc. in one minute of practice IRL, therefore the game should tell you. But this is not the case because I had this problem with Ovechkin, Kuznetsov and Backstrom in Capitals and they have excellent mental ratings.
This problem is costing me the regular season title lol. Now, my first line center has 5 of stamina (and it shows) (and Lindros him for next season), but I had the same problem with Ovechkin who has 19.

It's the hidden Natural Fitness attribute (or something). I'll give you an example from my previous save where I actually coached and kept OCD levels of control on the condition of my players.

Meet the players:
Onni Ventelä, Center on the first line, drafted 6th in the NHL draft. 2x 50+ points in 35ish games played seasons. Captain of the Finnish U-20 etc. He's got 17 Stamina. Should be able to put in silly ice time right?

Mathias Grönberg, Right Wingers on the first line, League top Goal-scorer both his seasons, he's got 15 stamina. Should be able to play less than Onni, right?

WRONG!

Onni Ventelä has lower Natural Fitness (presumably) which is a hidden attribute so I have to guess here. He can play on normal/low tempo in 5v5 and low/very low in PP and still end a lot of games with sub 70 con, forcing me to rest him when the schedule is tight. Mathias Grönberg on the other hand can play on high in 5v5 and normal/low in PP and still end games with like 85 con. The stamina attribute seems to have very little effect on how much a player can actually play (within reason). I've had plenty of 12 stam players who can play 18-20 minutes just fine. And then players like Onni with 17 stam who just dies if he has to play more than 18 minutes.

There seems to be a very very strict line in the sand in con managment in this game. A player can play like 17:55 in a game and be at like 92 con loving life, but so help me if he goes over the magical 18 minute line. Generally that will drop the player into the low 80s at best.

Keep in mind that you also have a lot of other stuff working with con. If a player gets first star he gets back like 15-20 con. So a player can end the game at like 80, get 1st star and go back to 100. If you win the game all players get a little bit of con back too. If you lose...well, chucks! If your captain does well (getting a single point seems to be enough) he will also lower the con loss of everyone who is on the ice with him during the game. So make sure your most consistent pointscorer on the first line is also your captain (assuming he has the mentals for it) and you can play your first line on higher tempo and still be just fine.

Natural Fitness (maybe) will also make it so some players gain back more con per day on just about every schedules you might use. Onni from the previous example had a 12 a day con return on the "general" schedule and like 8-10 on the normal schedules, which meant that for all the huge loss he had in games, he bounced back really fast. Making me think that probably there is some other hidden attribute that also plays into con return or con loss in games. Cause Onni loses a lot in games and gains a lot between games. So logically it can't be only Natural Fitness playing into it. Onni also showed very little (3ish a day) return on rest. So you couldn't rest him back to fitness. You had to train him back to it. Never seen that with another player, but then he was a pretty special player. The per day return seems to run between about 6-12 with most being in the 8-10 range. At least in the leagues I've played. (EIHL, Swe-2, lowest english tier). If you exhaust your players over long stretches of time that return becomes lower and lower until you are forced to rest players. Unless they're d-men cause they have infinite con anyways...

And on the note of not showing if they are lazy etc. Yeah there are a lot of things that you should be able to know at a glance more or less that aren't there in the game. But it's almost always going to be like that. And when it isn't you almost drown in different game screens. I mean this game is probably going to get closer and closer to how inclusive FM16 is over time. That is presumably the goal at least. And in that game you can actually just get lost trying to find that one screen showing some specific thing. But if you look at something like the scout reports in FM16 they are sooo good. If there was 1 single thing from that we could have in EHM in the short-term it would be the "suitable for league X football hockey". Because that makes knowing who to loan out your prospects who aren't quite first team material, but too good to improve in J-20, to. Because if you loan him to a league too low, he won't be challenged. But a league to high and cause the trade AI is "questionable" it will accept the loan and then just not play him, which is less than awesome. It's pretty much a guessing game, sometimes your J-20 won't play someone who is clearly better than all their players because you can't actually control what the J-20 coach does, so if he is a special brand of awful he just might bench your goalie the entire season for no reason, stunting his growth. These are things that shouldn't be a challenge, but are due to lack of ability to communicate with player/coaching staff.

[RomaGoth]

...At some point I should probably compile a list of what all the scout snippets that I know the meaning of actually means. But I keep forgetting, and I'd need a full list of all of them. Cause I would never remember all of them off the top of my head.

The below list is one I have had for many years (from EHM 2007) and I can't take credit for it but I don't remember who originally put it together. I did, however, make some additions:

Weak character - low average of mental attributes.
Strong Character - high average of mental attributes.
Ordinary - no notable mental strengths or weaknesses
Ambitious / Unambitious - relates to the attribute 'ambition'
Determined / Low Determination - relates to the attribute 'determination'
Loyal / Mercenary - relates to the attribute 'loyalty'
Sporting - relates to the attribute 'professionalism'
Professional - relates to the attribute 'professionalism'
Poor Self-Belief - relates to the attribute 'pressure'
Mellow / Relaxed / Aggressive - relates to the attribute aggression; a player with a rating of 1 in aggression would be described as 'mellow', a rating of 5 or less would describe him as 'relaxed'.
Fickle - (low loyalty?)
Resilient - (high bravery? low injury proneness?)
Dour - (low temperament?)
Independent - (low teamwork?)
Competitive - ??
Slack - (low workrate?)
Driven - (high determination?)
Casual - (low workrate?)
Modest - (professionalism? temperament?)
Realist - ??
Iron Willed - (very high determination?)

[Shindigs]

Yeah, looks like the one on the wiki. But that one is only the "report card traits" not the scout snippets from the report. Both are of fairly similar imporance, in my humble opinion. There are a few red flags though, as soon as I see unambitious, low determination or poor self-belief I just remove the player from my shortlist and never think about him again. Have not had good experiences with unambitious players. They tend to not grow as much as I feel they should. Low determinations is self-explanatory and poor self-belief means they are very prone to lose their head when up against agitators. The wombo combo is "poor self-belief", "aggressive" and "competitive". Based on what the "has a competetive streak" scout report in FM16 means, it means the player is prone to bend the rules to try and win. Pair that with with poor self-belief and aggressive and you better pray your Penalty kill is good, cause you'll need it.

[RomaGoth]

Yeah, looks like the one on the wiki. But that one is only the "report card traits" not the scout snippets from the report. Both are of fairly similar imporance, in my humble opinion. There are a few red flags though, as soon as I see unambitious, low determination or poor self-belief I just remove the player from my shortlist and never think about him again. Have not had good experiences with unambitious players. They tend to not grow as much as I feel they should. Low determinations is self-explanatory and poor self-belief means they are very prone to lose their head when up against agitators. The wombo combo is "poor self-belief", "aggressive" and "competitive". Based on what the "has a competetive streak" scout report in FM16 means, it means the player is prone to bend the rules to try and win. Pair that with with poor self-belief and aggressive and you better pray your Penalty kill is good, cause you'll need it.

From my experience the poor self-belief (poor self-confidence in EHM 2007) is a dynamic attribute. Some players will actually increase after playoff experience. As for the other attributes, I also stay away from unambitious and low determination players.

[Shindigs]

That is fair enough Roma, but why pick someone with a negative trait when there are so many out there without it? Unless that player is absolutely standout in other departments.

Just won the HockeyAllsvenskan again, got the playoff bug again. 3 Players were ruined (~10 attribute loss at low age, based on moverare they never come back from this) 3 players lost small amounts (sub 4) of attributes, and another 3 got stunted and didn't grow at all even though they have grown a lot every single period up into this. Gotta love a game that makes winning something you have to avoid like the plague cause a bug ruins all your players if you do...just mindblowingly bad. I should probably stop playing until they fix that, since I did report it on the SI forums. But not like it matters, 9 of my best players just had their careers ruined at once because I won. So this save is dead anyways *sigh*

[Tasku]

That is fair enough Roma, but why pick someone with a negative trait when there are so many out there without it? Unless that player is absolutely standout in other departments.

Just won the HockeyAllsvenskan again, got the playoff bug again. 3 Players were ruined (~10 attribute loss at low age, based on moverare they never come back from this) 3 players lost small amounts (sub 4) of attributes, and another 3 got stunted and didn't grow at all even though they have grown a lot every single period up into this. Gotta love a game that makes winning something you have to avoid like the plague cause a bug ruins all your players if you do...just mindblowingly bad. I should probably stop playing until they fix that, since I did report it on the SI forums. But not like it matters, 9 of my best players just had their careers ruined at once because I won. So this save is dead anyways *sigh*

Have you tried starting a new game? Often the bugs will only happen for certain conditions, which might've been met in your current save. I've not heard anyone else mention this, or seen it myself. (Not that I've played much in relegation / promotion leagues)

[nino33]

Regarding the idea that "many roles start with the same in-game description. But as the player improves he will branch into a more specific descriptor. If he is simply in the "w_finesse" role maybe he keeps being described as "quick/flashy/skilled off fwd" no matter how good he gets? Whereas the others eventually become goal-scoring, playmaking, etc." - No, the Player Role does not change (a w_finesse will always be a w_finesse).....but if the CA is high enough a player can become more "well rounded" than their Player Role

That was what I meant too actually, just worded it a bit poorly again. a w_sniper is always a w_sniper, but a bad/young/underdeveloped sniper might have the current in-game descriptor "flashy/quick/skilled Off Fwd" I've had several who did indeed have that descriptor, but as they improved through playing and training they got their current role in the position tab changed to "goal-scoring forward". My intrerpretation of what is happening there is that due to said player being of the w_sniper role, as he...actually she in the case I'm referring to...improved the attributes towards what she has an affinity to due to her role, she changed to the goal-scoring forward descriptor. If she was actually a simple w_finesse she would have remained a Quick Off Forward no matter how good she became. I've had several other finesse player with much, much better visible goal-scoring technicals than her never pick up that description. So maybe there is some connection, but not one good enough.

Interesting!

Will be cool to see how much easier hidden attribute scouting becomes after next update.

Agreed!

That's the thing though. Someone like Pavel Bure became the way a "20" in speed was judged in the 90s.

Not to me! I believe simply that a 20 Speed is a 20 Speed.
I do retro rosters as well as modern, for me “they’re all players to be rated on a 1-20 scale” and in general different eras makes no difference to me when rating. Some Attributes are rated different by era (for example, Agitation) but in general the difference isn’t in the ratings, but the amount given Poor-Average-Good-Top ratings. Top ratings is very similar/the same, but with modern rosters there’s more Average-Good and far fewer Poor players…..but from a researcher/ratings perspective, for most Attributes, the ratings you use are the same regardless of era (I’m not at all a supporter of the idea that players today are better in every way!)

That is a rarity, you don't get that many players who are super standout at one thing, like Kessel for "weak foot" wristers, Bure for speed, etc.

I think if you understood rating players more you might feel differently; I think a significant percentage of players are super standout at just a few things (and while their Attribute ratings would be different, players can be super standout at a particular Player Role at 80 CA and 130 CA and 180 CA; the 80CA player is unlikely to play elite hockey, the 130 CA player would be a super standout Elite League player, the 180 CA player a super standout NHLer)

There are less than 50 different Player Roles, and over 40K players!
Each Player Role has different groupings of Attributes, and each of these groupings has a different importance/relevance…..when you’re rating (and thus differentiating) players and you have a defensive defensemen or a sniper instead of some other type of defensemen/forward, you’re talking about just a few Attributes

players who are 23 or younger with either 20/20 or 19/20 Acc/Spe, they are a dime a dozen.

I’ve heard this said before; please post such observations at SI

With the starting TBL roster one of the fasters players in the league has like 13/14. Two years later with EHM training, newgens and regens you have the average top 6 player rocking more than that, and several players up against the 20 cap. That does mean something isn't working quite right. It's too easy

Your TBL roster data and the conclusions/comparisons you’ve drawn don’t seem correct to me…..

In TBL 8.2, in the Swedish Allsvenskan, there are eighteen players with a Speed above 14 or more (sixty with a Speed of 13 or more) & for Acceleration there are nineteen players above 14 (sixty-eight with an Acceleration of 13 or more).

There are 135 forwards in the Swedish Allsvenskan that have a Speed rating, and they average out to 11.8 (57% of forwards have a Speed of 12 or greater); There are 135 forwards that have an Acceleration rating, and they average out to 11.8 (50% of forwards have an Acceleration of 12 or greater).

In TBL 8.2 in the Swedish Allsvenskan there are three forwards who have 17/16 for Acceleration/Pace, another with 16/15, six more at 15/15 and six more at 14/14

There seem to be a number of players at startup who are much better skaters than your 13/14 example, and having several superfast players doesn’t seem surprising/unreasonable to me…..

Also there is naturally always a random element to the training, or anything really. Just about any game that involves simulation or multiple outcome stuff will use some sort of behind the scenes virtual dice rolling, would be awfully boring if it didn't. That's why you need to so many iterations to actually be able to say anything with certainty. Where there are so many unknown possible outside influences on your players' progression, the only way to get somewhat reliable data is to just keep on recording until the RNG evens out. Which naturally your large scale tests get around to doing much faster. Which leads to something I was wondering, were you controlling all teams putting them on the "Malhotra" schedules, or was it the AI doing the training? Because there seems to be some question as to if the AI cheats when it does the training. And since we know the AI does cheat in other facets of the game (condition managment, at the very least), it wouldn't be totally out of the realm of possibilities that it did.

I was not playing/controlling anything, simply testing (all Leagues on Enhanced, everything on Full Detail).

I haven’t seen any evidence to support “AI cheating” – for me, the fact that some people find the game WAY to easy and others find it WAY to hard really hurts any claim the game plays out a certain way all the time…..there are some that win with defense, and many more that win with offense, there is no “one way” to win/be successful in EHM

[nino33]

I don't think the comments you're referring to connect to the new Player Role system...my understanding is they will next update...I think what you're seeing refers to Attributes (for example, "flashy" = Flair Attribute) and also "common hockey sense"

Flashy doesn't actually mean high Flair, it should, but it doesn't. That's what I thought it meant until I saw a lot of players with "meh" Flair have the descriptor.

I’m not sure what “meh” is HaHa
Don’t forget to take the CA of the player, along with the Player Role, into account when determining if a rating is “meh” or not

And…..it could be editing errors! as I’m seeing players in 8.2 with a “grinder” Player Role with Flair that I believe makes them no longer a grinder!

Also there is naturally always a random element to the training, or anything really. Just about any game that involves simulation or multiple outcome stuff will use some sort of behind the scenes virtual dice rolling, would be awfully boring if it didn't. That's why you need to so many iterations to actually be able to say anything with certainty.

Agreed!

Just to be clear/clarify, what I was thinking about was not so much the random element, but that different things result in things being weighted in different “known ways” like age, and quality of competition, and coaching Attributes (something I’ve always been interested in)…..at least “in general” known

Flashy = mentals are the strongest part of his game, Quick = Physicals are the strongest part of his game, Skilled = Technicals are the strongest part of his game. In a lot of the players only described as "flashy/quick/skilled fwd" you can barely even tell which they should be, cause they tend to be jack of all trades with like 8-12 across the board.

In the Swedish Allsvenskan the researcher target for Average CA is 70, Good 90, Top 110.

While things have been tweaked, the EHM07 knowledge is still useful (Players Attribute Guide)
The Average-Minimum-Maximum Attribute value for such CAs is
70 CA = 7.5 1.5 13.5
90 CA = 8.5 2.5 14.5

So seeing lots of 8-12 for Attributes in the Allsvenskan makes sense to me…..

Why are there no "Flashy Defensive Defensemen"? Is it somehow less important to know what kind of attributes defensemen favor compared to forwards? Seems really strange to me, and also makes it a bit harder to judge D-men at a glance with hidden attribute scouting.

IMO, from a (hockey) common sense view - if a defensive defensemen were “flashy” he would no longer be a defensive defensemen! HaHa
A defensive defensemen blocks shots, pushes guys away from the front of the net, fires the puck around the boards/off the glass to get it out, battles for the puck in the corners, dumps the puck out/clears the zone…..these are skills that are hard to do in a “flashy” way! HaHa

It’s possible that things aren’t working ingame as intended/as they should; this might be more apparent when the game itself is required to generate values…..feedback/critical analysis and saved games posted at SI are the key to fixing such issues

It’s also possible that the Attribute editing isn’t ideal…..we’re a very small team of volunteers and we were just as surprised (and pleased) with EHM’s return as everyone, but we’ve been scrambling to do our best to better understand (and thus better edit) the new EHM

[nino33]

On the note of CA and PA, could you elaborate a bit more into exactly how that works.

CA = Current Ability
PA = Potential Ability

Current Ability “connects” to Attributes.

With EHM07 there was an Average-Minimum-Maximum Attribute values for different CAs…..but when I discovered EHM in 2010 and started testing I found it wasn’t so simple and straightforward…the guidelines don’t apply to all Attributes! Some Attributes are more “either/or” and not really a rating/value (like Pass Tendency) & some Attributes grew/developed/changed and some did not! And of the ones that grew/developed/changed, some did so “normally” and some did so very rarely and in small increments

The new EHM is different again!
- Attributes that rarely developed much now develop more
- Attributes that didn’t develop in EHM07 now do
- And Player Roles now affected Player Development (how Attributes are distributed/developed)

My understanding is that they can be in multiple brackets of PA, some with huge variance which leads to those players you have 2 scouts saying 1 star, 2 saying 5 star etc. Then you have the "sure things" who have a fairly low variance, but they can come in different PA's like 200 was Gretzky mode if I recall correctly?

PA is “Potential Ability” (the maximum CA a player can reach).

Many players (typically age 24 and older) have a “set” PA.

As necessary PA is determined at startup, and when a player is “regenerated” – in the database itself players under age 24 are given a “variable PA” by researchers as #1 it’s hard to predict/determine the talent of young players and #2 so that each new game started the player receives a different PA within a given range, thus adding to game “replay value”

For example, in the TBL 8.2 database top PAs include Crosby/Toews at 192, Price at 190, Stamkos/Tavares/Ocheckin at 186, etc.....while there are four -10 players (McDavid, Veleno, Eichel and Matthews)

Here’s the PA Chart from the Attribute Guide (wording slightly updated)
-1 PA will be 1-20 (likely to retire young/keep getting recycled back into the regen pool)
-2 PA will be 10-40
-3 PA will be 30-60
-4 PA will be 50-80
-5 Potential will be 70-100 (Major Junior/lower leagues)
-6 Potential will be 90-120 (AHL)
-7 Potential will be 110-140 (Elite League talent level)
-8 Potential will be between 130-160 (rare – a top prospect); NHLers
-9 Potential will be between 150-180 (very rare – a “top 10” type prospect); Good/Top NHLers
-10 Potential will be between 170-200 (top player available in a draft, but not every year)
-11 Potential will be between 20-80
-12 Potential will be between 40-100
-13 Potential will be between 60-130
-14 Potential will be between 90-160 (intended for very young, hard-to-predict top prospects)
-15 Potential will be between 110-190 (intended for very young, hard-to-predict top prospects)

The way the wiki post was written the roll of Off/Def seemed to decide how much attributes they have in the "offensive" or "defensive" attributes, explaning the players with 16+ acc/spe and like 5 sta/str.

Sounds like it could be written better (I believe that’s how it might have worked prior to EHM07).

The way the wiki post was written the roll of Off/Def seemed to decide how much attributes they have in the "offensive" or "defensive" attributes, explaning the players with 16+ acc/spe and like 5 sta/str. But then there is also the Player Role Off/Def roll? These are two different things right, one only affects how much visible attributes the player has in the two fields, and the other describes how willing they are to use said attributes on the ice? It gets a bit confusing at times.

No, same thing.
Every Player has a Player Role, and an Offensive Role value/rating, and a Defensive Role value/rating, and a CA (Current Ability) and PA (Potential Ability), and they’re all hidden! HaHa

As I noted earlier, for Offensive Role and Defensive Role each hidden 1-20 rating indicates #1 a willingness/interest in playing offense/defense & #2 an understanding of offensive/defensive play & #3 also connects somewhat to ability to play offense/defense



If you’re new to EHM I think it’s important for me to note, so you have “context” for everything, is that until last spring EHM was a “dead” game. EHM07 was released in late 2006 and by early 2007 it was a dead game…and this community and a small number of volunteers really kept it alive! The creation of editors and updated rosters and patches to fix things was all done by volunteers…and then suddenly a year ago there was a new EHM!

The developer Riz had always said he never said never and hoped for an EHM return someday. He created the game as freeware almost 20 years ago, then versions with SI in 2004/2005/2006…..it’s really “his baby” and he worked on it in his personal time and that’s what brought it back (which made us EHM07 fans very happy!). But the ongoing development is mostly one guy, when he’s not working on FM, who’s doing the work + a very small group of volunteers doing the rosters/testing (like you and I).

I myself am happy the dead game is back! It’s a niche game, and it comes secondary to FM, and I accept that! I wish/dream it was different for sure! But it’s not, and I try to be realistic…and at less than $20 (currently only $5) it’s great value IMO! And editing capabilities are growing! and via testing/discussion we’re learning more!

As a guy who worked on a dead game for 5 years I’m thrilled with the slow & steady progress being made

P.S. IMO you really need to download/familiarize yourself with the EHM Updater and EHM Assistant and use them in your testing – the Updater to look at the database before you start a test and the Assistant to look at your test game data (both the Updater and the Assistant export the whole database into excel spreadsheets).

[nino33]

Flashy = mentals are the strongest part of his game, Quick = Physicals are the strongest part of his game, Skilled = Technicals are the strongest part of his game.

I found this to be especially interesting. Do you have some concrete evidence, such as extensive testing, to prove this theory? I would love to see it if you do, as this could completely change how we scout, deploy, and train players.

Just something I noticed over scouting many many players.

I think to make such strong/definitive statements you need actual extensive testing data

Logic states "Quick" would mean good skater. But most players I find with it have like 10 acc and spe, which is laughable.

Really? In the Allsvenskan? Because the data I posted above showed many in the league with an average much higher than 10...also, quick means a decent Acceleration but it doesn't necessarily mean a good skater (Balance/Agility aren't directly connected to speed but they're 50% of the skating Attributes)

But overall they tend to have more physicals for the average of their age than they do mentals and technicals. The ones with "skilled" tend to have above average technicals, not always total technicals. For example an offensive skilled forward might have above average "offensive" tech, but quite mediocre defensive tech.

Sounds like (common) hockey sense to me.....physical develops first (some 14-15 year olds are HUGE), then technical/"hockey skills" (some 16-17 year olds can play "skillwise" with players much older), and then mental (some players never develop much, those that do almost always do so as they grow older)...and the idea that an offensive skilled forward would have better offensive Attributes than defensive Attributes makes total sense to me too...the fact that in general defensemen/defensive play development and mental skills development occurs later is common knowledge

Presumably someone like nino could more easily compile the average mentals/tech/phys of large amounts of players

I have, but not in connection with any ingame scouting reports (and using the EHM Assistant anyone can easily compile such data)

Since I play with hidden attributes these days I don't have any real up to date spreadsheets to pull from. This was mostly happening back in my previous 8.1 database save.....For me its just based on doing a lot of scouting with hidden attributes, meaning I have to read as much as possible into the scouting reports as I can.

FYI I've read EVERYTHING there is to read about EHM for years, and I've never read anything proclaiming the scouting system/comments as informative/accurate as you seem to think...

And it fits what I've been seeing over 410 hours of playing the game (most of that time is AFK while doing things in spreadsheets and photoshop though) but of the acual real play time my focus is always scouting out unknown stars. I never buy expensive young players, I get the ones that are like <=10k $ and generally 25-33% of them get drafted to the NHL. So I'd like to think I've got a fairly good idea about how scouting works.

FYI there's a chance those you're discussing/debating EHM with have had more than 410 careers! HaHa
I've got 2639 hours with EHM1 & a lot more than that with EHM07

I still have the two 200 page coil notebooks full of notes I took when I discovered EHM in 2010 (and read everything I could...I recommend it). I have an evergrowing wall chart with all the Attributes and notes/definitions & added charts/descriptions/definitions and...almost all of it is public knowledge, and much of it you don't seem as familiar with as I'd think you'd want to be if you're going to make the efforts you are at testing/understanding the game

[nino33]

Based on what the "has a competetive streak" scout report in FM16 means, it means the player is prone to bend the rules to try and win.

I'm not sure why you're connecting FM16 to EHM1...and "prone to bend the rules" sound a lot like the hidden Dirtiness/Sportsmanship Attributes in EHM (which have been around for a decade or more)

[nino33]

Gotta love a game that makes winning something you have to avoid like the plague cause a bug ruins all your players if you do...just mindblowingly bad. I should probably stop playing until they fix that, since I did report it on the SI forums.

Did you upload your saved game?
I'd think that'd be necessary, as your experience is not at all the norm (I don't recall anyone ever saying they had to avoid winning because a bug ruins players...there's been multiple TBL Challenges, TBLers posting about their careers, and there's two online leagues connected to TBL and I don't recall any reports of winning ruining players)

[RomaGoth]

...FYI there's a chance those you're discussing/debating EHM with have had more than 410 careers! HaHa
I've got 2639 hours with EHM1 & a lot more than that with EHM07...

I started playing EHM with EHM 2005 and then moved over to 2007 and was playing it as recently as....earlier today. Yeah, I have thousands upon thousands of hours playing EHM over the past 11+ years.

[RomaGoth]

...If you’re new to EHM I think it’s important for me to note, so you have “context” for everything, is that until last spring EHM was a “dead” game. EHM07 was released in late 2006 and by early 2007 it was a dead game…and this community and a small number of volunteers really kept it alive! The creation of editors and updated rosters and patches to fix things was all done by volunteers…and then suddenly a year ago there was a new EHM!

The developer Riz had always said he never said never and hoped for an EHM return someday. He created the game as freeware almost 20 years ago, then versions with SI in 2004/2005/2006…..it’s really “his baby” and he worked on it in his personal time and that’s what brought it back (which made us EHM07 fans very happy!). But the ongoing development is mostly one guy, when he’s not working on FM, who’s doing the work + a very small group of volunteers doing the rosters/testing (like you and I).

I myself am happy the dead game is back! It’s a niche game, and it comes secondary to FM, and I accept that! I wish/dream it was different for sure! But it’s not, and I try to be realistic…and at less than $20 (currently only $5) it’s great value IMO! And editing capabilities are growing! and via testing/discussion we’re learning more!

As a guy who worked on a dead game for 5 years I’m thrilled with the slow & steady progress being made

P.S. IMO you really need to download/familiarize yourself with the EHM Updater and EHM Assistant and use them in your testing – the Updater to look at the database before you start a test and the Assistant to look at your test game data (both the Updater and the Assistant export the whole database into excel spreadsheets).

I was shocked, surprised, and ultimately excited when this new version of EHM was announced. It is definitely a niche game, mainly for two types of people: hardcore hockey fans and sports sim fans.

I am loving the Updater and Assistant; I use them a lot for testing much like I did the Scout and Editors with EHM07.

[Shindigs]

That is fair enough Roma, but why pick someone with a negative trait when there are so many out there without it? Unless that player is absolutely standout in other departments.

Just won the HockeyAllsvenskan again, got the playoff bug again. 3 Players were ruined (~10 attribute loss at low age, based on moverare they never come back from this) 3 players lost small amounts (sub 4) of attributes, and another 3 got stunted and didn't grow at all even though they have grown a lot every single period up into this. Gotta love a game that makes winning something you have to avoid like the plague cause a bug ruins all your players if you do...just mindblowingly bad. I should probably stop playing until they fix that, since I did report it on the SI forums. But not like it matters, 9 of my best players just had their careers ruined at once because I won. So this save is dead anyways *sigh*

Have you tried starting a new game? Often the bugs will only happen for certain conditions, which might've been met in your current save. I've not heard anyone else mention this, or seen it myself. (Not that I've played much in relegation / promotion leagues)

I'd never seen it myself before 1.1.1 either. The problem with testing it again is that it requires me to win, and if I managed myself that's not really going to be an issue per se, but that takes so long. And if I leave it up to the AI coach it really is a roll of the dice where you place until you've had a few years to build a cohesive squad. If it was "bought" players that got messed up that would have been fine. But this was all homegrown players who have been with me since they were 16-17. Going from barely making the 4th line to being 1st line captaincy material knocking in close to 1PPG, kinda irreplacable players. And they all have my club as their favourite and eachother as "favourite personel" so it's been a 8 season project to build this team. Never seen players mesh like this before. I actually chose not to buy a new first goalie to make it so I wouldn't finish top 2, that way I'd dodge this bug. But turns out my 2nd goalie decided it was time to go insane this seasons and I had 4 players end the season at 40+ points. For reference, most years you'll struggle to have more than 1 player in the entire league reach 40+ so they really turned up for this season. Which makes the fact that they all crashed and burned at the end of the season even more of a slap to the face.

[Shindigs]

Not to me! I believe simply that a 20 Speed is a 20 Speed.
I do retro rosters as well as modern, for me “they’re all players to be rated on a 1-20 scale” and in general different eras makes no difference to me when rating.
Some Attributes are rated different by era (for example, Agitation) but in general the difference isn’t in the ratings, but the amount given Poor-Average-Good-Top ratings.
Top ratings is very similar/the same, but with modern rosters there’s more Average-Good and far fewer Poor players…..but from a researcher/ratings perspective, for most Attributes,
the ratings you use are the same regardless of era (I’m not at all a supporter of the idea that players today are better in every way!)

Yeah, there is no reason that the actual talent or w/e of the players would have grown with time. That is ultimately a ridiculous claim to make. What has changed though is the "professionalism" of the game. Players are on better and stricter practice schedules today than in yesteryears. Like that one goalie who used to smoke in the dressing room before games, can't remember his name. So the athleticism of players today is higher. Presumably someone who was the best of the best 10-30 years ago would still be the best of the best today. But the average players' level is higher, so they wouldn't be as prolific as they were. Another big thing that shouldn't be overlooked is the evolution of equipment. There's that one Youtube video of current NHLers trying to play with wooden sticks and just being baffled at how hard it is to stickhandle with it. Not to mention the difference in skates, goalie pads, etc. The equipment alone makes players seem better than they are in comparison. Even though the underlying skill of the players isn't the actual reason for it.

Your TBL roster data and the conclusions/comparisons you’ve drawn don’t seem correct to me…..

In TBL 8.2, in the Swedish Allsvenskan, there are eighteen players with a Speed above 14 or more (sixty with a Speed of 13 or more) & for Acceleration there are nineteen players above 14 (sixty-eight with an Acceleration of 13 or more).

There are 135 forwards in the Swedish Allsvenskan that have a Speed rating, and they average out to 11.8 (57% of forwards have a Speed of 12 or greater); There are 135 forwards that have an Acceleration rating, and they average out to 11.8 (50% of forwards have an Acceleration of 12 or greater).

In TBL 8.2 in the Swedish Allsvenskan there are three forwards who have 17/16 for Acceleration/Pace, another with 16/15, six more at 15/15 and six more at 14/14

There seem to be a number of players at startup who are much better skaters than your 13/14 example, and having several superfast players doesn’t seem surprising/unreasonable to me…..

I misremember a lot of things sadly, and as previously stated the whole hyperbole thing. I tend to try and not state opinion as fact, since that is a really pants thing to do. Normally I tend to add in that it's merely what I have seen in my playtime and which conclusions I've come to, but sometimes I forget. Big part of me misremembering so much is that I'm currently being medicated for a chronic illness, and the medication has a lot of side effects. Enough that the medicine isn't used for anything other than this specific thing anymore due to them. But I don't really want to talk about that here. And I don't want to blame it in full. Just making it known that I'm far from my sharpest mentally right now, and it does affect my ability to carry myself as I feel I should sometimes, sorry.

There was also a slight oversight from me in the post, in the 8.2 database a lot of players (at least in VIK) got "buffed" in HockeyAllsvenskan, and as mentioned I play with hidden attributes in this save (8.2 db) last time I played without hidden attributes was actually in 8.1 and I didn't have perfect knowledge of all players. But in the older version "Eddie Davidsson" was among the faster players that I had looked at, and more imporantly he made it show on the ice. Scoring a lot of cheap goals that he got from simply being faster than the defence. So I made an incorrect conclusion based on that. I really should probably get the editor and save thingy though, otherwise I have to do too much guesswork. But on the other side of things I'm playing the game to play the game at the same time, and part of that is limiting the amount of information I have to challenge myself. Using the editors does the exact opposite, in giving me perfect information. As much as that would obviously be better for making the testing as scientific as possible, I have to reiterate the fact that I am first and foremost doing the compilation of training results for my own gain, seeing my players grow is essentially what I enjoy the most about the game. Then I share my perceived results to have others with much more experience with the game put in their 2 cents and give other points of view. And that is exactly what is happening, which is great! But my focus isn't actually #1 testing, it's #1 playing the game and challenging myself in doing so. The testing is merely a side-effect of how I go about doing that. Not to mention a way for me to keep my excel knowledge from getting too rusty, although it already is quite bad.

FYI I've read EVERYTHING there is to read about EHM for years, and I've never read anything proclaiming the scouting system/comments as informative/accurate as you seem to think...

When I'm playing without the editor, and with hidden attributes I have to go off something when I scout though, right? And so far my method has given (mostly) good results. Before this latest amazing crash 4 out of my top 6 were players I picked up as 16 y/o's back in 2016-18 (2025 ingame now) who did grow into my core. And if I hadn't lost 1 player a year to the NHL I have no doubt all 6 would be "homegrown". So yes, maybe the scout reports are bogus. Maybe the game essentially "lies" to me with them. But when I am trying this "realistic" approach to playing the game as a management game it is, in fact, all I've got. And generally speaking I can make a fairly accurate image in my head of what a players' attributes will look like based on his scout report. So it has to have some good intel in it. Sure, some players will just be miles better than I thought they would. And yes, sometimes your scouts will just forget to mention that a player has 5 Workrate, which is a pain. But the way I'm scouting is working very well for me personally, and at the end of the day that is good enough for me. Since the goal of the exercise is to win me games, which it does.

Should also note that I don't only go off the Scout report. Since epecially in Swe-2 they have a tendency to call just about everyone and their mom a 5 star potential. My scouts are more prone to hyperbole than me, believe it or not. Since I play a very offensive style of hockey I always go for forwards that score points first and foremost. This also has the upside of being the easiest to scout. Since you can use their previous seasons as a measuring stick. If a player has absolutely amazing snippets in his scout report, a good report card, is considered 5 star potential, but has less than a 0.7PPG in all his seasons in similar skill level leagues or higher than mine so far. I simply won't go for it. With younger players it's a bit harder since a lot of young talents can tear it up in junior hockey, but never quite make the step up. But when you are looking at lower 20s players who have 3+ seasons in ECHL or AHL (HockeyAllsvenskan is somewhere in between the two, roughly, but closer to ECHL) and they scored close to 1PPG in all seasons they will generally be a top player for a Swe-2 side. Some just flop tremendously though, but if your scouts say "he has the attributes" and their previous results say "he has the hidden attributes to make use of those attributes" then you have a pretty good idea what you're working with. Sure I don't know the exact strengths and weaknesses of his attributes, but I know he has what it takes to make them work in practice. And at the end of the season I won't care how he got 40+ points. I only care that he did.

The fact that I'm challenging myself in this specific way does cause a lot of contradiction though, I am by nature one to want to know everything. But I know that in doing so I've ruined a lot of games for me by removing the joy of discovery. In a game like WoW where you play with others and you have to be your best (at the highest levels) to compete, going all out on the game knowledge is a no-brainer. But in a singleplayer game it's different, at least for me. I know that if I don't pace myself I'll burn out too fast. And I felt that coming before I turned on hidden attributes and limited my scouting. Every season and every save was just becoming the same before I did it. Because I essentially kept getting the same player with different names and playing like 12 of him as forwards. And that really was cutting into my enjoyment of the game. When Dundee Stars has a lineup consisting of 12 Swedish finesse players you know you're doing something wrong, even if you have a high win rate as the lowest salary team. Because at that point which league you're playing doesn't even matter. You're gonna field the same team anyways.

Based on what the "has a competetive streak" scout report in FM16 means, it means the player is prone to bend the rules to try and win.

I'm not sure why you're connecting FM16 to EHM1...and "prone to bend the rules" sound a lot like the hidden Dirtiness/Sportsmanship Attributes in EHM (which have been around for a decade or more)

Game made by the same company, by a person who works on FM. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this game run in a modified version of an older FM game engine? It makes sense that if a certain trait means one thing there (that to me is counter-intuitive, competitive=bad for a pro athlete?!) it might mean the same here. I've even seen "hints" in the loading screen that are literal copy pastes from ones in FM. Even when they don't necessarily make sense in EHM. It's the one about tackling on easy/normal with strict referees, except I've never seen any mention of which referee you have pre-game in EHM (maybe I'm just blind). You do however see that in FM pre-game.

[nino33]

FYI I've read EVERYTHING there is to read about EHM for years, and I've never read anything proclaiming the scouting system/comments as informative/accurate as you seem to think...

When I'm playing without the editor, and with hidden attributes I have to go off something when I scout though, right?

I had bolded your phrase "I have to read as much as possible into the scouting reports as I can" because it's your "reading into" that I wondered about.....I don't think you've done the background reading necessary to have the level of understanding you're looking for, and while hyperbole adds to your challenge exaggeration I don't think is causing issues, it's the "facts" that are being exaggerated...they're often seriously faulty or outright incorrect

Based on what the "has a competetive streak" scout report in FM16 means, it means the player is prone to bend the rules to try and win.

I'm not sure why you're connecting FM16 to EHM1...and "prone to bend the rules" sound a lot like the hidden Dirtiness/Sportsmanship Attributes in EHM (which have been around for a decade or more)

Game made by the same company, by a person who works on FM. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this game run in a modified version of an older FM game engine? It makes sense that if a certain trait means one thing there (that to me is counter-intuitive, competitive=bad for a pro athlete?!) it might mean the same here. I've even seen "hints" in the loading screen that are literal copy pastes from ones in FM. Even when they don't necessarily make sense in EHM. It's the one about tackling on easy/normal with strict referees, except I've never seen any mention of which referee you have pre-game in EHM (maybe I'm just blind). You do however see that in FM pre-game.

I myself know nothing about "run on a modified FM engine" or references to soccer/football in the hints...
I know about referees and their Attributes as I edit them (also, you can see referee "stats" ingame)...
I think your "word connection" can be faulty - for example, now you reference "competitive" but none of the Attributes being referenced (Dirtiness/Sportsmanship) would be used by an editor to attribute a value to a player's competitiveness...
And my point about FM16 was largely about the "16" part (I was thinking it odd to that you're comparing things that have been in a hockey game for 10 years with things that are in the current FM...given FM has yearly development and 100 people working on the game & "EHM doesn't" HaHa I didn't think the specific EHM/FM comparison likely)


Now I've got to get some roster editing done!

Nino

[Whomario]

Could anybody be so kind and give me a "for dummies" explanation how to keep track of a players development via either a tool or spreadsheet ? Ideally without getting shown the CA/PA ? (i found the EHM Assistant, but can´t find any tracking option )

cheers

[nino33]

Could anybody be so kind and give me a "for dummies" explanation how to keep track of a players development via either a tool or spreadsheet ? Ideally without getting shown the CA/PA ? (i found the EHM Assistant, but can´t find any tracking option )

cheers

The old Player Attribute Tracker spreadsheet involves manual inputting, but allows you to track all the visible/ingame Attributes http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... te+tracker

The EHM Assistant allows you to export the data to spreadsheets, and it allows you to select exactly what is exported (so you can have CA/PA not export)

[Whomario]

Could anybody be so kind and give me a "for dummies" explanation how to keep track of a players development via either a tool or spreadsheet ? Ideally without getting shown the CA/PA ? (i found the EHM Assistant, but can´t find any tracking option )

cheers

The old Player Attribute Tracker spreadsheet involves manual inputting, but allows you to track all the visible/ingame Attributes http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... te+tracker

The EHM Assistant allows you to export the data to spreadsheets, and it allows you to select exactly what is exported (so you can have CA/PA not export)

Thanks ! Unfortunately the link for the tracker is down .

a little more "for dummies" maybe on the EHM Assistant ?

[nino33]

a little more "for dummies" maybe on the EHM Assistant ?

I'm at work (recess at the school I work at) so I don't have the Assistant in front of me, but it's pretty straightforward/self-explanatory I think (have you tried to open the program/use it? have you looked through the thread http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... =assistant)

You need your saved game to be up and running, then you open the EHM Assistant.....top left of the EHM Assistant is where you load your saved game (and also where you select the options for exporting), the selection options are across the row header (like players data or staff data, as well as the option to export the data into a spreadsheet)

Bell rang! Gotta go

[Whomario]

Thanks, appreciated. Will see if i can find an easier way to do this ... All i´ve found so far is to manually search a player, put the player column in options to display the various attributes and then export the search result player by player. (or for the whole team, but then i´d have to rearrange in the file).

If someone here could reupload the spreadsheet http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 115&t=6860 or message the last uploader, that´d be highly appreciated. Theres gotta be someone in here using this still Cause to be honest, that "oldschool" approach appeals to me and would save me from digging into my very clumsy excel skills ...

Thanks again for the help.

[nino33]

Thanks, appreciated. Will see if i can find an easier way to do this ... All i´ve found so far is to manually search a player, put the player column in options to display the various attributes and then export the search result player by player. (or for the whole team, but then i´d have to rearrange in the file)

With the EHM Assistant...
- Click File in the top left hand corner, then click Load Game
- Click on File in the top left hand corner, then click on Options, and then click on Player and select what you want to export (I don’t recommend exporting “Positions Short” as it can cause an issue with players who play multiple positions, otherwise I usually export everything…you can easily select/deselect whatever you want)
- Click on Players in the header across the top of the screen, and then select All Players…..this will populate the screen with all players in the database
- Click on CSV and export everything

If someone here could reupload the spreadsheet http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 115&t=6860

I requested this too