Challenge Questions/Feedback? Post Here!

[bruins72]

What? A WHA Challenge? I think it would be a shame not to.

[timmy_t]

What? A WHA Challenge? I think it would be a shame not to.

Sweet!

[jdh79]

I am just getting ready to start my first challenge, and I have 2 questions about signing/resigning of free agents. I find the wording in the roster rules a little confusing.

1. Are you allowed to resign your own players who will be UFA/RFA at the end of the season during training camp/the regular season of year 1, or do you have to wait for them all go become FAs. From experience playing the game, there are certain players that are definitely cheaper to get signed long term right from the beginning of the game and I wasn't sure if this was not allowed
2. With the restriction on signing free agents, does this include your own unsigned prospects? Are we allowed to sign Mueller, Hanzal, etc to get them into our system for the beginning of next year?

[batdad]

1. Yes you can sign your own UFA and RFa guys. But they cannot have left the team.

2. You can sign anyone who is your property whenever you want. With euros you may not get them over til the following season. But sometimes you can get them over immediately.

[Shadd666]

1. Yes you can sign your own UFA and RFa guys. But they cannot have left the team.

Hem... The rules states that you can sign your RFAs "for free" even if they left the team (but only if you still own their rights, obviously). While your UFAs can't be signed "for free", and should count toward the 2 FA signings.

[batdad]

Right sorry bout that. I meant that you could resign your pending UFA's without them counting towards the UFA number. So during the last season they are contracted. If it goes to end of June and they leave as UFA's they count.


The confusion here stems from NTNB...where you can let your player go UFA and then try and resign him. But you cannot sign any new UFAs.

RFA's as long as you maintain their rights are fine to sign whenever.

[jdh79]

Another question. You are required to pick at least once in the first and second rounds. However, what happens if you sign someone else's RFA to an offer sheet that carries draft pick compensation which costs you your first or second round pick? Are you not allowed to make that type of move? Or do you then have to make an additional trade to get back a pick in the round you lost?

[Shadd666]

Re-read the rules This is perfectly explained there...

It's sometimes annoying to go back and forth between the game and the rules, so i'd suggest you to do what i do:
- print the rules and keep it close to your computer for a fast look when you play (in case you sometimes don't have internet access, which is my case)
- make yourself a sum-up of the rules (trade deadlines, HG eligibility conditions, etc). It will answer 90% of your questions way faster than re-reading the whole rules. If you still have a doubt, re-read the entire appropriate section of the rule. And obviously, if it's still not clear, ask here and there will always be someone to answer and clear up the (eventual) confusions.

But i'm 99.9999% sure that the issue with signing other teams RFAs is clearly mentionned in the rules

[batdad]

If you sign another RFA...you could easily be in trouble.

1. you are only allowed 2 FA signings. This costs you one of them.

2. you must give up the picks, and since you cannot deal your picks like a crazy man...looking for an edge...you have to be careful.

3. You have to have a pick in 1 or 2 that is yours. You cannot trade yours all away and signing an RFA works just like a trade as far as the rules are concerned.

My advice to everyone: Stay away from RFAs period. You can try and get them when/if they go UFa or trade for their rights. But I would not sign them to a sheet.

Play cautious within our rules, because they can be complex, and it is easy to make errors when you first start out in the challenges.

if in doubt...and wondering if something will be against the rules. Somehow it likely is. so if in doubt...don't make the move.

Ask about 5 guys in this one already. Even experience players like B72 and CatchUp have made mistakes in the past because they went too fast, and forgot a rule.

Ahem...like trading on draft day...ahem.

[jdh79]

Sorry to keep asking questions, but here's another one that I can't find anywhere. The minimum games requirement for core players only refers to games played for skaters. Is there any requirement for ice time? IE, with the Coyotes, alot of the core players you have to take are pretty much useless. Is it considered unethical to set your garbage core players to the first line to start the game, play them for a few seconds, then change your lines and tactics to only run 2 lines the rest of the game?

[bruins72]

Yeah, it's pretty unethical. The rules don't state that they must play a certain amount of time, just a certain number of games. We wanted to allow people some flexibility in how they worked their lines. But if we saw people start to abuse that, it would probably force us to make some sort of rule change. In other words, if your think it's possible that you'd be exploiting a loophole in the rules, it's probably a good idea to avoid doing it.

[bruins72]

Back on the subject of challenge ethics, I'd like to point out that we really frown upon exploiting loopholes in the challenge rules or finding ways to work around the rules and in some cases this can result in heavy penalties or even removal from the challenge. For example, people playing by the old school rules who try to skirt the no-trade period at the start of the game by making an offer on one of the players that are cheaply available from teams over the cap and then delaying the trade until after the no trade period ends. That actually crosses the line from challenge ethics and turns into out flat out cheating in my book. Once again, just think about these things for a second. If the devil on shoulder tells you to do it and the angel on the other shoulder tells you it's bad, listen to the good one.

[jdh79]

I think part of the question deals with tactics in general. In EHM, the best way to set tactics and get the best overall results (unless you have 4 excellent lines) is to roll with the just 2 or just 3 lines tactics. It's because the way the game applies fatigue does not impede player performance anywhere near as much as playing the same minutes with fresh but garbage players does. So, if using a two line or three line only strategy is considered illegal, isn't that the same basically as setting restrictions on what tactics you can set?

Ironically, this is only possible because of the requirement to coach games yourself. Typically, I never coach games myself and just set the tactics, personal tactics, lineups, lines, etc. If you set Just Two or Just Three forward usage and don't coach games yourself, it still uses all 4 lines for at least a few minutes a game; whereas if you coach yourself it doesn't use the other lines at all and will use top line forwards like 35 minutes/game. However, I do think this needs to be clarified with an official rule.

[batdad]

Nope..you can use the tactics that you want. Run 3 lines. Run 4 lines, run 2 lines and one set of freaking d-men. I don't really give a hoot.

Just be dang sure you play your core and HG players enough so that we don't think you are looking to exploit the rules of the challenge.

It is that freaking simple guys..just play the game as close to how a REAL NHL COACH and GM would with the players you have.

if you think Shane Doan is gonna play 50 minutes a game for you, or eddie Jovonovski is gonna play 55...fine so be it.

But it will cost you in the end in some way, some how. There are guys getting a ton of injuries to players now, and I know why. All I have to do is look at the time on ice for forwards and dmen for them.

So anyway...play it smart, not silly and looking for loopholes just to try and win.

[Shadd666]

Maybe some were worried when they seen me playing pretty fair and ending 29th

But well, even if it was by far my worst ever EHM season in terms of results, it was clearly one of the most fun i had! Every single win was a really hard battle and maybe really happy of it! I was even happy with some losses when we get a tight game against a way stronger team. In the same time, i kept a close eye on how my prospect develloped and tried to adapt my team to this talent for future years, and i start to have a plan for the upcoming 3-4 seasons... This plan may not work, but it's way more enjoyable to play rather than cheating to win every game 9-0 and end up no longer involved with the team.

Plus, there's no shame in loosing, especially with a team that has so few talent as Phoenix.

So well, the rules are not made to annoy anyone. They are here to try to compensate the holes of the AI and its weaknesses. Cause you know, playing with a 4th line of Ovechkin-Crosby-Hossa, with Niittymäki in goal, etc... It's fun when you discover the game, and we all did that at least once. But after a while it's no longer interesting to play this way.

So we try, here at TBL, to build some rules to keep things interesting, and closer to the reality. We don't pretend the rules are perfect (how could they?), and it's fine to debate about the rules (which we always do) or propose tweaks or new rules if you have any.

But once you decide to join a TBL challenge, it means that you decide and are willing to play in a way closer to reality than the basic game, and that you accepted the rules made to do so. So then, please stick with those rules. There is no way, nor pride, in cheating or exploiting rules loopholes if you really decided to play it fair.

So if you prefer to win 70 games a season with a 45-1 margin in any game and with superstars on any line, it's your right! But it's not what the challenges are made for. You should have those "glorious" games by yourself, outside of the challenge. You should even want to communicate about how well you are performing via the TBL blogs. That's fine.

But when you join a challenge, you are making the choice of playing in a (more or less) realistic way, and give a real meaning to the simulation part of the game. So no arcade play, no cheating, etc.

Now that it's clear for everyone, have fun with your Coyotes!

[timmy_t]

Is it considered unethical to set your garbage core players to the first line to start the game, play them for a few seconds, then change your lines and tactics to only run 2 lines the rest of the game?

I just looked at your 1-20 stats and I guess you decided to do that...

Yeah, you'll have good numbers now, but at the 60 game mark your top players will be "exhausted" after every game.

Also, it seems like a waste of talent to play Kaigorodov for an average of 55 seconds per game.

::SIGH::

[jdh79]

I am going to see how it goes; it may prove to cause too many injuries and late season performance problems that it isn't even worth it. Already, I have had a 3 month injury to York and 3 week injury to Reinprecht. I have never tried doing this to this extent with a private game, but I have never really had to deal with using so much garbage on the bottom two lines either. And yes, if I was coaching this team for real, I would play Doan 60 minutes a night if possible given the alternantives.

[Shadd666]

jdh79: Yes, York is injured for 3 months. How much he played? Oh, yeah, over 33 minutes per game... When it's commonly considered that you kill a forward over 20-25 minutes per game, you can imagine what you're doing with him. We could also mention the Doan's 30 minutes, Morris 34 minutes, Jovanovski 36 minutes, and so on. And now you're forced to play with those 'garbage players', as York is no longer available. Are you still sure it worth it?... At this pace, all of your few valuable players will be injured long-term, potentially with recurrent injuries that will just ruin the few talent you have, and your roster will look like a decent AHL team. Unfortunately, you wouldn't be eligible for the Calder Cup...

You would play Doan 60 minutes if you were coaching Phoenix for real? Okay, so just to make things clear: you would be fired after your first exhibition game, because real life GMs aren't dumb enough to let their coach ruin their players this way. Unless you'll put Doan in net so that he can effectively play 60 minutes without risking his life... You'd also be fired... No need to mention why.

[batdad]

And yes, if I was coaching this team for real, I would play Doan 60 minutes a night if possible given the alternantives.

That quote alone shows

1. You are not understanding the spirit of the challenges.
2. You would be the worst real hockey coach in the history of the world. save perhaps Bill Laforge and maybe Aalpo Suhonen.
3. A few other things, but I won't say em, cause I ain't that much of a jerk.

So anyway...at this point...this is my last challenge as a person running it.

The challenges are great! Proof: WE get more people involved in them every time we start a new one. We are well over 20 people participating in this one. Unfortunately there is one or two people every time that cause issues. I am tired of addressing them and babysitting them, because they seem to read the rules to find ways around them and then we have to make new rules. So...to make things simple...

From the top of page 6 in this stats recording thread in this challenge every single post must include your individual statistic screenshot. With the DATE!!
The screens will be checked to make sure you are following the new challenge rule below:

You must use your players for at least 8 minutes per game. Period. No exceptions. I don't give a rubbish if you play them 8 straight minutes. Each player must have an average of 8 minutes ice time per game....

Regardless of whether or not they are in the core.

Penalty for not following this rule: 40 points per season. Not wasting any more time on it after I say what I have to say about the challenges.
Simple rule--no question needed. just follow it.

So JDH...that means you ain't trying this little philosophy of yours. And you need to go and make sure that Kaigorodov's 55 seconds per game becomes 8 minutes per game. and since he is in your core..you need to make sure he does not get injured while trying to catch up. So don't bother playing him fro 40 minutes for 10 games, and then scratching him.

I really did not want to come down like this, but you know what....jdh read the rules properly. read the site and all the threads about previous challenges...and you will understand why this pees me off. Or quit, run away and whine about what a jerk batdad is on another site.

Or better still, create a thread in arrivals and whine about what a jerk batdad is. I don' really give a hoot.

So...anyway thanks to all the wonderful people out there who make the challenges absolutely no fun.

Note: If people quit popping up and trying to find loopholes to prove they are some sort of EHM god (or the opposite I am not sure) then...I may return to dealing with this rubbish. Until then...have fun. But don't bet on any challenges starting, or any stupid bloody challenge stats being input into the system.

Us mods ain't babysitting. Maybe another mod will deal with this. but I won't.

Everyone get that? good. Now stop making me have to babysit this thread. Thanks.


Now...I know it is only a few out there. But you know what..the few have once again managed to ruin things for the whole.

I wish you all the best in future challenges.

[jdh79]

And yes, if I was coaching this team for real, I would play Doan 60 minutes a night if possible given the alternantives.

That quote alone shows

1. You are not understanding the spirit of the challenges.
2. You would be the worst real hockey coach in the history of the world. save perhaps Bill Laforge and maybe Aalpo Suhonen.
3. A few other things, but I won't say em, cause I ain't that much of a jerk.

So anyway...at this point...this is my last challenge as a person running it.

The challenges are great! Proof: WE get more people involved in them every time we start a new one. We are well over 20 people participating in this one. Unfortunately there is one or two people every time that cause issues. I am tired of addressing them and babysitting them, because they seem to read the rules to find ways around them and then we have to make new rules. So...to make things simple...

From the top of page 6 in this stats recording thread in this challenge every single post must include your individual statistic screenshot. With the DATE!!
The screens will be checked to make sure you are following the new challenge rule below:

You must use your players for at least 8 minutes per game. Period. No exceptions. I don't give a rubbish if you play them 8 straight minutes. Each player must have an average of 8 minutes ice time per game....

Regardless of whether or not they are in the core.

Penalty for not following this rule: 40 points per season. Not wasting any more time on it after I say what I have to say about the challenges.
Simple rule--no question needed. just follow it.

So JDH...that means you ain't trying this little philosophy of yours. And you need to go and make sure that Kaigorodov's 55 seconds per game becomes 8 minutes per game. and since he is in your core..you need to make sure he does not get injured while trying to catch up. So don't bother playing him fro 40 minutes for 10 games, and then scratching him.

I really did not want to come down like this, but you know what....jdh read the rules properly. read the site and all the threads about previous challenges...and you will understand why this pees me off. Or quit, run away and whine about what a jerk batdad is on another site.

Or better still, create a thread in arrivals and whine about what a jerk batdad is. I don' really give a hoot.

So...anyway thanks to all the wonderful people out there who make the challenges absolutely no fun.

Note: If people quit popping up and trying to find loopholes to prove they are some sort of EHM god (or the opposite I am not sure) then...I may return to dealing with this rubbish. Until then...have fun. But don't bet on any challenges starting, or any stupid bloody challenge stats being input into the system.

Us mods ain't babysitting. Maybe another mod will deal with this. but I won't.

Everyone get that? good. Now stop making me have to babysit this thread. Thanks.


Now...I know it is only a few out there. But you know what..the few have once again managed to ruin things for the whole.

I wish you all the best in future challenges.

I think that you are misunderstanding my intentions here. I am not trying to ruin the challenge for anyone but I am trying to maximize my team's production within the constraints of the challenge rules. I did read the rules, and the rules stated a minimum games played requirement, no minimum minutes per game of players in your core. It's also going to be awfully difficult to make up minutes now that I am 32 games into the season when I read of the rule change. Plus, looking at other people who have posted stats, there are plenty of others with guys in their core that don't have 8 minutes of average ice time.

If this rule is in place now, can I just scrap the current save game and restart from scratch? I would go with different core players, etc if that was the case. Also, looking at other people's stat recording information, there are plenty of others who have core players with less than 8 minutes average time/game, including you yourself batdad, at least in season one (Zigomanis and Tjarnqvist both have under 8 minutes ATOI).

[archibalduk]

When we (well actually, mainly Batdad and Bruins72) wrote the rules, we didn't envisage such detailed scrutiny. The rules are not so much laws but more like a framework within which to play the Challenges. However, we're having to introduce more and more rules to ensure that people play within the spirit of the Challenge.

I'm not trying to single you out, JDH. Nor is it my intention to pick on you - I just want to explain where Batdad and the rest of the TBL Mod Team are coming from. When the core and homegrown rules were introduced, the basic idea was to ensure that users retained and actively played a certain number of the original roster so that users can't completely overhaul the rosters every Challenge with the same players. However, if a user plays his core players just a minute per game to satisfy the requirements then it's not really in the spirit of the game. Yes, it is sticking to the rules, but it's exploiting them. This isn't what the Challenges are about; they're supposed to be fun. Ok, I don't see anything wrong with not playing a few of your core players many minutes a game if it just works out that way. But that's different from a user going out of their way to intentionally ice core players a few minutes to exploit the rule.

Do you see what I mean? Does it make sense where I'm coming from?

Anyway, the 8 minute rule won't apply this Challenge. However, it will apply from the next Challenge onwards.

[Taloncarde]

I have a question about the 8 minutes, just from someone who hasn't participated in challenges and am trying to start my first one

Wouldn't 5 make more sense? In my personal games i've played i've sometimes had a player I put in on the 4th line, that wasn't on PP/PK and that's about what they averaged. They are still getting ice time, and not being iced on purpose by any means, but that's just what the ended up (4-6 minutes a game)

[batdad]

jdh...it is the intention..like archi states. You are starting out, admittedly with the INTENTION of overplaying guys. Then in a couple weeks we see your long term injuries rack up. Then we see you (not yet but others do) complain about them in the chat thread.

there are others doing this as well...so I have had enough of it. coaches never play 2 lines per game..which is what is virtually going on here, when you have guys averaging 34 and then guys on another line 20. The odd shift for thrid and fourth liners notwithstanding.

GUYS: IF YOU DO NOT SEE A REAL LIFE NHL COACH DOING IT. DON'T DO IT IN THE CHALLENGE!!! Tis that easy.

Then...well...you get the point. I hope...

[archibalduk]

It'll certainly need some testing. We'll be sure to test it in time for the next Challenge. I'm sure we can get some sort of compromise.

[Taloncarde]

np, and I know (depending on the team of course) it's usually only one player that ends up that way

For example, I was doing the Stars with the default DB, and had a 4th line of Ott, Halpren, and Stefan. Halpren was doing PK duty, and Stefan PP (And actually scoring!) so they were putting in more minutes, but since Ott was only on that one line, he averaged around 5