The future of challenges at TBL

[batdad]

So...time to see where everyone stands.

Do we want to win the Stanley Cup in the first season of every challenge. Even with the new rules 10/16 people won the cup with the Hawks in season 1.


Do we want to try something completely new?

Do we want to make the challenges harder/easier?


Let us know. We want to know.


Poll will run for 10 days

[archibalduk]

To get the discussion going, here's my opinion: I think we keep the rules how they are for the time being. Firstly, the introduction of the TBL Roster Update should mix things up a little. The nature of the game has changed with this update due to the higher wages and larger salary cap (so we'll need a higher Challenge Salary Cap) as well as different rosters. It might be nice to do one more NHL Challenge with these new rosters before going on to another league. Or perhaps we should just jump straight into a non-NHL Challenge.

I think we should try playing with another league before we introduce tougher rules. It might be that with an OHL/ECHL/etc team, there will be a greater challenge under the rules. If it is still a breeze to win trophies with teams in other leagues then it would then be worth looking at imposing some new rules.

Ultimately we need to reach a balance between fun and rules. Too many rules will make the game too complex and take the fun away. Too few rules will make it too easy and, again, will take the fun away.

For more of a challenge we could try something really different like the British leagues or the bottom Finnish League (Suomi Sarja). Another possibility is playing in a league that allows for promotion.

[Tasku]

Another possibility is playing in a league that allows for promotion.

Suomi-Sarja allows promotion all the way to SM-liiga.

[joehelmer]

Or Swedish Allsvenskan to Elitserien.

[Tasku]

But there's more to climb from Suomi-Sarja. It's Suomi-Sarja --> Mestis --> SM-liiga.

[Hypnotist]

I'm certainly game for a Euro league Challenge. Never ran a team from across the pond, so it would certainly be a new challenge for me.

[Calv]

it would be quite hard to run a challenge with promotion and relegation. If some teams go up a league in their first season and others don't do wegive more points for a win in a higher league etc... Also what if the leagues have different number of matches, it would essentially be like running two challenges at once

[Tasku]

it would be quite hard to run a challenge with promotion and republican...

Republicans and Democrats, they're all alike!

[batdad]

It would be hard for sure. We would have to rethink the scoring system, which is not easy to do. And we would need someone with Euro team knowledge and rule knowledge to assist us in dealing with in-game issues. *cough*Taksu*cough*

The scoring system in the computer and the code is not easy to change as it is complex at best. What I mean by this is it would take a fair amount of time to be properly worked to run a challenge outside the NHL (especially in Eur). IT can be done, but would not be simoly a matter of plugging in numbers. Promotion/relegation would be a very difficult part.

As for lower NA Leagues...the random generation of soooo many players makes the challenge difficult to judge in terms of GM Skills. AGAIN, not to say it cannot be done, but it does make it hard...when 1 GM could have 6 ECHL superstars and another could have the same 6 players be useless twits in any league.

Anyway, in order to get the rules and things straight should a non-NHL challenge be chosen (I kind of like the Euro idea) it would not likely be Challenge 10. This is because it will take some time to prepare and learn the Euro stuff to make the challenge rules work well. IT would more likely be challenge 11, and depending on time constraints for us running it, could be challenge 12.

Now..challenges are going to be run much quicker than this last one. With an overall deadline, so they do not drag on for 7 months. So waiting til challenge 11 or 12 will not be as long as it would be if it were runnign the same as C10.


This is just so all know what goes on behind the scenes.

[Tasku]

I could definately chip in at helping with the rules a bit more than I've done so far. (During the 12 years I've been at this website, I've posted maybe once at the behind the scenes challenge thread to voice my opinion, so yeah...)

[Hypnotist]

I cannot comment on the promotion/relgation issue as I have never run a team in Europe.

Regarding the randomization of player stats in the lower NA leagues, I believe you are greatly overstating the effects. Before starting the ECHL Challenge, I went back through all of my different save games and looked at ECHL team and player stats to ensure that something like this hadn't happened. At most a couple of teams had a player turn into a monster and drag his linemates up in the stats department. But never did I see a team that was grossly superior (more than 2 league positions) to itself in any other save game. So I don't think we would have to worry about one persons team being automatically stocked with ringers. If it were to happen, I would guarantee that those players wouldn't be in the ECHL for long. They would undoubtedly be scooped up by AHL or NHL clubs.

What is a GM's job? Scouting for talent, evaluating talent, signing talent and building a team. With a greater base of unknown players and a higher turnover in the roster, I would say that it would be much easier to judge a GM's skills.

The same rules used for NHL challenges worked for the ECHL challenge with some minor modifications. Check out the Unofficial ECHL Challenge Thread, first page towards the bottom for the modifications. The coaching rule would work either way. We used the same scoring system as the NHL challenges and it seemed to work fine (verified by Calv).

[batdad]

I was not specifically referring to the ECHL or to the lower leagues in North America at all when discussing scoring. That was referring to the Euro Leagues period. Sorry if it did not appear that way.

The issue of promo/relegation is a huge one in the Euro leagues...it could severely skew things stat wise.

however,,,with Tasku actually dealing with Challenge rules we may be able to figure that out.

As for random generation...just pointing out the issue with it, that will definitely involve complaints no matter which way we go with the challenges. Those who lose stars and have the stats drop off that they can post, when their top scorer gets to the AHL, will complain (as in the ECHL challenge already completed), and those who have stars who don't get picked up will have an advantage.

But yeah, I know what you mean about being GM job to scout well...yet when you are not sure what the pool of players are due to random generation...could be a little hard to accurately assess...someone may have a database with 1000 great ECHLers that cannot make an AHL team, others may have 20 in their d-base. (And yes I am aware that is likely exaggerated--but exaggerated to make the point that the difference could be large from one game to the next)

But...that would be a challenge in the Euro leagues as well. Just something we have to figure out how to monitor and assess.

We will do that behind the scenes and thanks for the input hypno.


Again, that is IF and WHEN we get to an outside the NHL challenge. Not sure if it will happen.

[Loosie]

I voted to keep it the same. Mostly because I'm new to the boards and want to participate in an NHL team challenge. I'm kinda glad the Leafs have already been done, because that is the team I usually use.

That being said I wouldn't be adverse to a non-NHL challenge, be it a Euro Team, a lower league NA team or a Junior Team.

[getzlaf15]

I think there shud be somethin to do with Fantasy drafts. and every1 is givin different numbers from which they are picked from, like do a lottery and see when u are allowed to draft. just so every is unique in their draft order. or somethin like that

[batdad]

^^^What does that say? Try again with English.

[Hypnotist]

The issue I would have with getz's fantasy draft scenario would be fairness. Obviously the #1 pick has a HUGE advantange over the #30 pick, even with a snake-draft.

Something that may be interesting and a change of pace. Do a fantasy draft with the same scoring in place, but add the element of having to play a certain style. What brought this to mind was a thread about intimidation (I think?). I posted there that I had contemplated trying to FD a "Broad Street Bullies" type of team. Make a restriction that everyone on the roster has to have an "Aggression" stat over 70 while staying within budget constraints. Or do a Run-n-Gun team where everyone has to have a "Speed" stat over 70 etc.

This type of scenario surely limits the player pool initially, but it adds a challenging element. It would also affect how GM's draft throught the Challenge. Get John Tavares in the draft, but his speed is 69, tough luck. Send him to the AHL & hope he developes his wheels or trade him for a faster skater (just an example). I think this would be both fun & challenging. This type of challenge would almost certainly have to be a FD as I did some research in the Bullies type team and you'd never get the trades you'd need done and still be reasonably competetive as the majority of these players are 3rd line types, but there are enough skilled players who fit this mold to give variety and competitiveness. I could post the data I pulled if this would be interesting enough to enough people.

[archibalduk]

Challenge 5 was a fantasy draft. From what I remember, it wasn't the most challenging of challenges, mainly because everyone drafted a couple of big players (Ovechkin, Jagr and Forsberg) and then they drafted the standard "Challenge players" (i.e. those that don't have big reputations and aren't snapped-up quickly by other teams, but perform well in EHM). You can see what I mean by looking at the player stats for Challenge 5. Ten of the fourteen competitors finished first in the Conference, one finished second and the other three finished fourth. Nine of the fourteen won the Playoffs. Thus if we're looking for something more challenging, a fantasy draft would not be the way to go.

The only way to make the fantasy draft more challenging would be to impose stringent rules which would basically amount to a list of players that we couldn't sign. I think something like that would spoil the fun and mean that you'd have to keep referring to the list (which could easily be 50 players, if not more) whenever you drafted/traded players. I know we do currently have a list of players you need to retain when playing a challenge but it isn't anywhere near as long or imposing as the list in a fantasy draft could potentially be.

Batdad - I think what Getzlaf is saying is that we hold a draft on TBL whereby each user takes a turn to draft a different player. Thus everyone's roster will be different. That certainly is an interesting idea if I understand it right. It'd involve a lot of work but we have pulled-off drafting in the fantasy hockey a few times before. Still, though, I think it would still allow users to build together a team of "Challenge players". The new rules we introduced in the previous challenge (or maybe it was one before that? Time files!) which reduce the ability to sign "Challenge players" couldn't really be applied to a fantasy draft - we'd have to set the player lists on a team-by-team basis - how could we ensure everyone had an equal and fair list? Hypnotist's idea is quite interesting, though

I still think that if we want to mix the challenges up, we should look towards a different league. I didn't think about the problems promotion/relegation could bring. If (and that's a BIG "if") we decided to play a non-NHL promotion/relegation Challenge, perhaps the best approach would be to take it step-by-step:

1) Have a non-NHL Challenge to see how it goes.
2) Review how it went and introduce any necessary rule changes.
3) Play a second non-NHL Challenge.
4) Review how the rules went and see if any tweaks need to be made.
5) Play a non-NHL Challenge which involves promotion/relegation.

What I mean is that we'd need to see how a non-NHL Challenge went before playing a promotion/relegation Challenge. We'd probably discover after a first non-NHL Challenge that new rules designed specifically for the non-NHL would need to be introduced. These would need to be tested and fine-tuned with a second non-NHL Challenge. Only then could we consider a Challenge with the added complication of promotion/relegation.

Whoa! Now there's a classic Archi rambling

[Tasku]

I disagree!




...


You should've been a lawyer of something...

[joehelmer]

Well, promotion/relegation can be (will be) a problem. But if we don't gonna play a league that doesn't have relegation or promotion, which league is it going to be? The Brittish?

I remember a inofficial challenge that was quite fun, but it will take some time to go through. The idea was to get from the worst team in the game to become a NHL GM. We started in Wightlink and from there work our way up.
As I said it may take some time, but it was fun.
Maybe we/you can work out a system with different points for different leagues based on their reputation?

[Shadd666]

For now, we're not totally done in finding "perfect" rules for a NHL challenge, so i think we should continue to work on that before thinking to move to Europe or lower NA leagues

Even with the new rules, we still had loads of Cups won in the Hawks challenge, even in season 1. No way the Hawks win the Cup this year irl... Personnally, i played 5 seasons and had 3 Cups, 1 Finals appearance, 1 Conference Finals, 4 Presidents Trophy and 5 division trophies for my first ever challenge... Looks great on the paper, but i'm in fact just an average challenger, so the current rules are, IMO, way to easy, even if it was a lot of fun!

[bruins72]

Batdad - I think what Getzlaf is saying is that we hold a draft on TBL whereby each user takes a turn to draft a different player. Thus everyone's roster will be different. That certainly is an interesting idea if I understand it right. It'd involve a lot of work but we have pulled-off drafting in the fantasy hockey a few times before. Still, though, I think it would still allow users to build together a team of "Challenge players". The new rules we introduced in the previous challenge (or maybe it was one before that? Time files!) which reduce the ability to sign "Challenge players" couldn't really be applied to a fantasy draft - we'd have to set the player lists on a team-by-team basis - how could we ensure everyone had an equal and fair list? Hypnotist's idea is quite interesting, though

Ugggh! We tried doing this for fantasy hockey last year and by the time we finished (I believe it went on for DAYS!), I wanted nothing to do with my team. The whole process was ridiculous. Remember, we've got people from all over the world here. To do some sort of draft together is a logistical nightmare.

[batdad]

Yeah that draft would have taken over a month if guys like me had not sent in to Minstrel and said...bah...just pick for me. This is nuts.


Shadd--Ideally (in my mind)we would continue that, but if the user wants non NHL, the user wants non NHL

[Tasku]

Actually, at the moment votes are 10 for NHL and 7 for non-NHL.

The NHL votes are only divided into "more challenging", "less challenging", and "fine as it is".

[batdad]

Oh I know that the vote is for NHL so far, but ...

#1 voting not finished
#2 "if" the vote is close, we should look at non-NHL challenge soon as well.

[Tasku]

Yup. I'm just saying cause at first it confused myself, having the biggest number on the non-NHL option.