Attributes

sjsharkz · Post by **sjsharkz** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:27 am

Does anyone agree with me when I say that some of the attributes aren't detailed enough, like it has wrist shot, slapshot, now thats fine, but I think it should have wrist shot power, wrist shot accuracy etc....because some players in real life have powerful shots but arent accurate..see christian ehrhoff, and some players dont have a heavy shot but its deadly accurate.

I mean it isnt't like we can change it, but perhaps if there is ever a new EHM, they could take this into consideration, to broaden the attributes a little.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:35 am

For the sake of everyone who uses attributes, I agree.

But for me personally, I disagree. I think any attributes at all is far too much info, and I won't be fully happy till there's an option to see none of the attributes.

Unfortunately, like you mention, neither of our wishes will come true any time soon.

Post by **Tasku** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:56 am

I agree with Stinson here. We don't need more attributes, we need less of them if realism is what we want.

In real hockey you don't make decisions based on "attributes", you make them based on the players former achievements (history) and opinions of him by your scouts and other staff, or people who have worked with that particular player before, who you might have in your network of hockey experts.

Instead of ratings between 1-20, I would suggest ratings between 1-5. And instead of having twenty technical attributes, ten mental and seven different physical attributes (not sure if these are the correct numbers we have, just guessing), there should only be a few general-type attributes to give you an idea of his strengths and weaknesses in the scout report. For example:

Skating: 3
Physical: 2
Mental: 4
Offencive: 4
Defencive: 2

Ofcourse in the background you would have the same amount of attributes as we do now, but they should not be shown to the GM in the game, because there's no way of knowing a player that well in real hockey world either. The rest you would have to figure out by looking at the players history, perhaps by giving him a tryout and all that real stuff that happens in the world of hockey every new season.

Anyways, I'm just dreaming here...

Icos · Post by **Icos** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:37 am

Yeah, I am also in favour of less attributes. I used to judge players by attributes, now I'm more and more looking at their history, since some guys have good attributes, but bad stats and vice-versa. Sometimes I sign a player with bad stats and good attributes, just because of that - and usually it turns out to be bad decision

Anyway, if scouting was improved a bit, it would be a great feature not to see any attributes at all.

targetthyself · Post by **targetthyself** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:48 am

agreed id rather have none BUT i should be able to work them out for approximate scouts attributes perhaps letter grades for chemistry, his strengths and weaknesses, linemate suggestions, his PP or PK potential, that stuff.

sjsharkz · Post by **sjsharkz** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:40 am

Well, the more real the better, and I totally agree with B.Stinson, I never thought of it like that, but sadly....EHM will be the same until or if, they ever make another one....but thought it might be a nice topic to bring up and get other peoples thoughts.

TW Triton · Post by **TW Triton** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:49 am

I have to agree with the less and more issue on attributes. I personally feel that if you aren't into diving deep within the game, then less attributes would be the best possible solution for those that like to just run and gun.

For those of us who enjoy actually scouting, drafting and building players for your future team. Having the current set of attributes is great and maybe having a little more wouldn't hurt either.

All in all, none of that will change cause of the issue with EHM right now. No reason we can't all wish though, you know?

Post by **Shadd666** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:47 am

I'm in favour of less attributes, but more detailed scouting reports. And implement way more weaknesses in those reports! You generally see a "need to improve" line for the prospects of the draft, but once the guys are signed to a professionnal club, this line disappear in most of the cases, even if the player still sucks in this area.

Btw, to rebound on the original post regarding wristshot accuracy, power, etc, you generally find those infos in the scouting report (ie "uses a powerful slapshot, has a deadly accurate wrister", etc). So the attribute is just the average of all of that and the details are in the scouting report.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:18 pm

Dag-nab!

I didn't think so many people were in favour of the less/invisible attributes idea.

I really could have used you guys around release... I was on my knees begging SI for a rebirth of the classic "Wizard Mode"(Riz's original name for the 'hide all attributes' option), but I had no backing so they never seemed to considered it. Most people shot it down saying the scouting wasn't good enough for this to be fun(which I disagree with, since I had no trouble with it in the freeware, and that had maybe a fraction of the scouting quality this release has).

Post by **Shadd666** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:46 pm

In the original version (ie 3.0.0) or EHM07, the scouting had some big issues, like when scouts were saying that Jagr had only 3rd line talent. Of course, it had been tweaked fast. By themselves, the reports are maybe perfectible, but they are solid enough for a 'Wizard Mode', no doubt.

Btw, if the gods of hockey allow Riz to make another EHM, you know you won't be alone to ask for an invisible attributes option

Should be an option though. Many people want the attributes, and it's way easier to start the game, especially for people who don't know that much about real life hockey.

ElQuapo · Post by **ElQuapo** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 6:58 am

I think the current number of attributes is ok.

I don't like the suggestion of having even more, as the database outside the NHL and bigger leagues would get even worse then. It is simple not possible to research 100s of attributes for unknown players in the danish league for example - it is hard enough currently. I doubt researchers would even be able to do this accurately with NHL players.

TW Triton · Post by **TW Triton** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:25 am

That would be nice to see the scouting reports be a little more descriptive of the player you are looking at in the game.

Post by **vilifyingforce** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:56 pm

I just wish the scouting reports were varied a bit more. Also, I wish the scouts had a style of talking, some being articulate some being backwoods podunks, but could spot talent in a hedgehog knowwhatImeanVern? And that the scouts had reputations instead then attributes. For being able to spot talent, pick out weaknesses, whatever, maybe be able to spot really good goalies, but isn't sure what deking is.

TW Triton · Post by **TW Triton** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:57 pm

I feel that they could have rated certain people or groups differently. If anything at all, they should have sorted the scouts out to be in certain groups.

Such as the group of scouts who spot goaltending, those that can spot great defensemen and then those that spot awesome forwards.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:26 am

To be honest, I'm kind of surprised we don't have those three categories already. Riz had them in the freeware, and it seemed very logical for a scout's attributes. They just needed to carry the idea over to the SI releases.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:27 am

By the way, in case anyone's interested, I've "developed" a way to hide attributes.

It's not the prettiest method in the world, but it works, and if you're as desperate as me for hiding attributes - looks ain't no thang.

Anyway here it is:

Make a 1024x768 PNG background that's all black. Save it as the three main backgrounds(default.png; chl.png; office.png). Then go into your skin's .COL file(open in notepad). Nav. to the bottom and set all the attribute ranges to display as black(colour: 0,0,0)

Should look like this when done:

# PROFILE_ATTRIB_LOW
88 0 0 0
#88 211 72 85

# PROFILE_ATTRIB_NORMAL
89 0 0 0
#89 239 151 4

# PROFILE_ATTRIB_GOOD
90 0 0 0
#90 237 214 20

# PROFILE_ATTRIB_EXCELLENT
91 0 0 0
#91 98 168 60

This will give you black coloured attributes that'll blend perfectly into the black background - not allowing you to see them.

Again, it takes away the nice backgrounds... but I'm glad to take realistic functionality over good-looks.

Post by **Tasku** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 5:10 am

This might be worth a try.

It'll surely be a challenge trying to beat the puter with no attributes.

Post by **Tasku** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:35 am

I decided not to make a fully black background, because after initially trying it, I thought it looked way too depressing to be glaring at it for hours on end. Plus that way I couldn't see my staff attributes either. Without seeing your coaches attributes it is impossible to take charge of training yourself, because you don't know which coach should train which players (defenders, forwards etc), and it's even more difficult to know where are your coaching weaknesses. What kind of assistant do I need, and so on.

So I made little black bars on my backgrounds to cover only the player attributes like so:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x150 ... p00057.jpg

And I can still tell who's a good coach and who's not:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x150 ... p00058.jpg

It's still not pretty to look at, but atleast it's not all black.

I suppose someone who knows all the colour codes and has the time to spare, could easily make a great looking background for this playing style. Afterall the text doesn't have to be black to blend in, as long as the background is the same colour as the text. Just needs to be one colour on those particular areas and the same as the text.

But I'm not that kinda person. My software of choice is Paint.

TW Triton · Post by **TW Triton** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:53 am

Thanks!

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:07 pm

I like your thinking Tasku!

...Because as I was typing up my last post, I had the exact same thought. I realised I could save most of the default backgrounds, while still hiding attributes if I put small black boxes where each attribute would display. Though, I got it all made up in Photoshop(and then changed to the full black bars like you have, since it was easier than a million little black boxes), but I didn't like the look of the bars when on other screens... so I stuck with a more uniform full-black background(I'm used to it anyway, from the black screened program I have to stare at all day at work.

)

EDIT:

Afterall the text doesn't have to be black to blend in, as long as the background is the same colour as the text. Just needs to be one colour on those particular areas and the same as the text.

Unfortunately, I think it does have to be black. 'Cause I originally tried this technique a few months ago and I used a blue background that closely matched the overall colour of the default skin. Then I made the attributes the same blue. Unfortunately, since EHM uses drop shadows under it's text you end-up with only a portion of the numbers blending, while the other portion sticks out since it's on a slightly darker spot due to the shadow under it. I played around for a couple weeks with this idea, and could never find that right attribute colour that would blend with the shadowed and unshadowed spots. Since then, I've given-up on trying... until last night when the idea of using black hit me. In the end, I think anything lighter than black will cause the shadows to come out, and create the need for the attributes to blend on two different spots.

Icos · Post by **Icos** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:02 am

This is indeed a good idea and I will try it aswell. Might be possible to make it unoffical TBL addon for the game, credited to B. Stinson? I'm sure many of users would use it, if they got an idea.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:27 am

Icos wrote:This is indeed a good idea and I will try it aswell. Might be possible to make it unoffical TBL addon for the game, credited to B. Stinson? I'm sure many of users would use it, if they got an idea.

I just uploaded a full pack of attribute hiding backgrounds and COL files a couple hours ago.

It includes backgrounds to hide everything using my full black backgrounds; a set of backgrounds to hide just players with Tasku's bar idea; a set to hide just staff with the bars; and a set to hide both staff and players with bars. Hopefully it will suit everyone's needs.

Icos · Post by **Icos** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:10 am

Great job Stinson

sjsharkz · Post by **sjsharkz** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:02 am

I love the idea of covering the attributes, but for me personally, I can't get used to the black writing, especially on the news section, so I guess im going to go back to seeing the attributes

Post by **Tasku** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:33 am

On the News Section?

I don't have black there. Only my attributes are black, and them you can't see.