Draft Quality

[caymanmew]

Hello,

So i wonder what the quality of the draft is generally speaking. i dont want to know what players have what PA as i dont look at PA of any players who i dont own.

but i still want to know what to generally expect from different points in the draft. if i am picking around 15th in the draft what should i expect for the players PA to be? 120? 150? 180?

basically the points i want to know the most about are 15th (mid first), 40th (early mid second), 75th (mid third), 100+ (late rounds)


i know ever draft is different but if i could get general PA levels for the above mentioned times in the draft that would be great.

[batdad]

That will completely vary from season to season.

[caymanmew]

That will completely vary from season to season.

yes i know but isn't there some kind of trend?

i guess what i really want to know is what the true value of a pick is.

for example in the EA NHL Be a GM mode after the first 2 drafts (before they start making players up) the later rounds you can get 3.5 star potential(3rd-4th liners or bottom pair D-man) after that time those picks become useless as your really only getting 3 stars max if your lucky in the later rounds. therefore there is no point in making a trade for those picks unless your planning to trade the pick later.

what i want to know is what should i be expecting for 2nd, 3rd, and the late rounds potential wise.

i know year to year it is different but there has to be some general trends as to what you can get in what rounds. for example i bet there is a pretty clear trend you not getting 190 PA players in the 7th round.

[nino33]

The trend is they vary from season to season

i bet there is a pretty clear trend you not getting 190 PA players in the 7th round.

You are correct. Common sense is actually a good way to look at it IMO. Players don't typically slide multiple rounds (i.e. maybe in a poor draft your mid 1sts maybe are more like 2nds, in a good draft some 2nds might seem like 1sts and/or some mid 1sts will seem like high 1sts), and ideally you'll be able to maybe get "a later round steal" on occasion

If the above answer seems unsatisfying all I can say is EHM:EA had significant changes to the systems "under the hood" and no one has done the kind of testing to see if it's possible to produce the kind of trends/tiers it seems you're looking for (and if they did, I think it would be reported as a bug)

[batdad]

The trend is they vary from season to season

Could not have said it better myself.


Yeah no testing means not sure, plus each draft will vary widely on how many players of 150 potential, 200 potential or 30 potential there are available, so to give a round by round or blow by blow account of what rounds guys of what potential will be available is impossible. Plus, when you look back at EHM 2007 there were often guys like the Hasek regen available in the third or fourth round. Granted, the potential of that regen would not be 200, but it was still high as very very rarely did that guy come out as less than a starting goalie.

[nickflyers]

As Batdad and Nino have said the drafts vary as far as caliber of players, but there are a few late rounders that turn into solid players

Two different sims

Year - 1st Round Good - 1st Round Busts - # 2/3 Rounders That turn out good - Round 4-7 Good Players

2022 - 8 - 22 - 4 - 3
2023 - 21 - 9 - 13 - 3
2024 - 18 - 12 - 16 - 5
2025 - 14 -16 - 17 - 4
2026 - 23 - 7 - 24 - 9
2027 - 22 - 8 - 18 - 7
2028 - 24 - 6 - 13 - 2
2029 - 21 - 9 - 17 - 7


Year - 1st Good - 1st Bust - 2/3 Good - 4-7 Good
2020 - 12 - 18 - 10 - 0
2021 - 18 - 12 - 10 - 1
2022 - 20 - 10 - 9 - 6
2023 - 21 - 9 - 14 - 4
2024 - 16 - 14 - 10 - 7
2025 - 17 - 13 - 19 - 9
2026 - 17- 13 - 18 - 5
2027 - 24 - 6 - 14 - 3
2028 - 20 - 10 - 15 - 5
2029 - 19 - 11 - 14 - 4
2030 - 22 - 8 - 14 - 6

[nino33]

Sorry Nick, I remember now but forgot earlier that you had looked at the issue!

Thanks for sharing! great stuff

[batdad]

Yeah same goes for me. Totally forgot. Must be getting old, eh Nino?

[caymanmew]

thanks nick that helps.


also are they still using regens or do they make new prospects for teh drafts past the first few years?

[nino33]

also are they still using regens or do they make new prospects for teh drafts past the first few years?

My understanding is they're not regens like EHM07, but they're not complete newgens like say FM has
I think (might be wrong) that the idea was to remove some/all of the "identifiers" of regens, and to vary the PA a bit

[RomaGoth]

As Batdad and Nino have said the drafts vary as far as caliber of players, but there are a few late rounders that turn into solid players

Two different sims

Year - 1st Round Good - 1st Round Busts - # 2/3 Rounders That turn out good - Round 4-7 Good Players

2022 - 8 - 22 - 4 - 3
2023 - 21 - 9 - 13 - 3
2024 - 18 - 12 - 16 - 5
2025 - 14 -16 - 17 - 4
2026 - 23 - 7 - 24 - 9
2027 - 22 - 8 - 18 - 7
2028 - 24 - 6 - 13 - 2
2029 - 21 - 9 - 17 - 7


Year - 1st Good - 1st Bust - 2/3 Good - 4-7 Good
2020 - 12 - 18 - 10 - 0
2021 - 18 - 12 - 10 - 1
2022 - 20 - 10 - 9 - 6
2023 - 21 - 9 - 14 - 4
2024 - 16 - 14 - 10 - 7
2025 - 17 - 13 - 19 - 9
2026 - 17- 13 - 18 - 5
2027 - 24 - 6 - 14 - 3
2028 - 20 - 10 - 15 - 5
2029 - 19 - 11 - 14 - 4
2030 - 22 - 8 - 14 - 6

Looks like the 1st round has pretty solid prospects outside of a few outliers (2020, 2025 for example). Thanks for this.

[Rediscoveryx]

also are they still using regens or do they make new prospects for teh drafts past the first few years?

My understanding is they're not regens like EHM07, but they're not complete newgens like say FM has
I think (might be wrong) that the idea was to remove some/all of the "identifiers" of regens, and to vary the PA a bit

I'm a bit puzzled as to why they haven't gone down the same path as FM. It seems to me that it wouldn't be all too difficult to set a few parameters and then have the game randomize "newgens" according to these without any relation to players retiring except perhaps for balancing out the numbers.

I would love to see a young hot shot from Italy or some other non-traditional country (eg Anze Kopitar) coming up every ten-fifteen years or whatever.

By the way, how do the regen names work? Will the QMJHL still be populated by players with french-canadian names in 2025 or will there be no distinction? This was one of the small things that could bug the hell out of me in previous versions of EHM.

[lemming3k]

You really need to scout and check the quality each year I'm afraid.
Just the first two years are widely different with the first year having 3 top players and a lot of depth through the first 3 rounds(I was still picking up 2nd liners) - second year was pretty awful, by the end of the 1st round we were already talking 2nd line players and 3rd round limited potential.

Send at least two scounts to check it out in depth each year, maybe 3, and have a couple on young players below draft age - You'll get a feel for if it'll be a good draft or not year on year, and the more you have checking the younger players the more you'll know about future drafts so you can trade away picks on the bad years and pick them up on better years.

[nino33]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why they haven't gone down the same path as FM. It seems to me that it wouldn't be all too difficult to set a few parameters and then have the game randomize "newgens" according to these without any relation to players retiring except perhaps for balancing out the numbers.

I suspect it's nowhere as easy to do (coding/programming) as you're describing.
Given FM's been in development for so many years with a large development team, & EHM:EA is a game Riz has resurrected in his freeetime, and has only been out a couple months and is being worked on by few if any people beyond Riz...I'm puzzled you'd be wondering why they don't just easily copy FM

[batdad]

also are they still using regens or do they make new prospects for teh drafts past the first few years?

My understanding is they're not regens like EHM07, but they're not complete newgens like say FM has
I think (might be wrong) that the idea was to remove some/all of the "identifiers" of regens, and to vary the PA a bit

You are not wrong, that is basically what it is, but I think PA can vary through the full scale for the newgen, as can pretty much everything else. Very very loose base on the retired player. Will not in any way be able to identify the newgen based on the retiree he was created for.

[nickflyers]

Sorry Nick, I remember now but forgot earlier that you had looked at the issue!

Thanks for sharing! great stuff

It's all good Nino. The criteria I used to determine "good" picks was 300go minimum, fyi

[Rediscoveryx]

I'm a bit puzzled as to why they haven't gone down the same path as FM. It seems to me that it wouldn't be all too difficult to set a few parameters and then have the game randomize "newgens" according to these without any relation to players retiring except perhaps for balancing out the numbers.

I suspect it's nowhere as easy to do (coding/programming) as you're describing.
Given FM's been in development for so many years with a large development team, & EHM:EA is a game Riz has resurrected in his freeetime, and has only been out a couple months and is being worked on by few if any people beyond Riz...I'm puzzled you'd be wondering why they don't just easily copy FM

Because the infrastructure and the solution has already been developed by the FM team. I'm not saying that it's a bad job or anything, I'm just saying that I'd imagine that it would be relativaly easy to copy the FM method compared to developing other stuff from scratch (and this is something that would make quite a big difference when playing many seasons into the future).

[Jeppe28]

Is there a possibility to ask scouts or the assistant GM whether the upcoming draft will be a good one or not, like a summary? Or do I have to look at the rankings and decide if it is a good idea to trade for additional picks? I'd really like to ask my assistant GM, who would not trust Mark Messier, hu?

[Mauso]

There are a lot of things missing in connection with draft, but its still only EA

To add my bit to discussion, here is a player with around 180 PA and I think his skill distribution is a bit sad as his CA is more than 170 already. Seems to me, that PA isnt always that decisive in EHM


Also how do you guys do in-depth scouting? Because assigned to draft scouting, my scouts mostly scout ranked players. Id prefer them to scout some unranked youngsters as at later rounds most of the ranked players are no good anyway
And about goalie prospects...does their psychical skills start to develop later or is it strictly individual? EG Vitek Vanecek from Capitals is 24 in my save and has only 2 mental skills in green.

Thanks for response guys!

[Asher413]

...here is a player with around 180 PA and I think his skill distribution is a bit sad as his CA is more than 170 already. Seems to me, that PA isnt always that decisive in EHM

Looks to me like an awesome first line winger in my systems. Also- was he game generated or in the DB when you started?

I think IMO one of the biggest errors many people do is simply think PA rules all. I could probably put attributes in a was for a guy with a PA of 170 that you wouldn't even want to put on the ice. The shame is much of the scouting system is based off of PA.

Also how do you guys do in-depth scouting? Because assigned to draft scouting, my scouts mostly scout ranked players. Id prefer them to scout some unranked youngsters as at later rounds most of the ranked players are no good anyway

I set to checkbox "Igonore Well Known players" to yes and then set positions to scout (so for example Centers that are not well known) for about half my draft scouting. It doesn't find many 4 or 5 star guys, if any at all, but I find it useful to have a better scouting db for those later rounds.

[riazorblues86]

i totally agree with you since many people too fond to care of player with highest PA is better skater. As for me , even lowest PA player can became a better player depending their roles and your tactic.

One of my team skater only got PA126 but he played full 82 games in NHL with average rating 7-8 per game. so far i maintain not to sell this guy, since he consistency is great while he wages cheap enough.

and one more things as for my method, i prefer let the rookie play in NHL when they reach age of 24..less than that, they need to develop in AHL..but that just my method, others people got their own..so it depends to you how to handle it..

[helmespc]

...but I find it useful to have a better scouting db for those later rounds.

I have actually found my scouts to be mostly worthless at finding anyone beyond the first 15-20 picks. Pretty much everyone beyond that is 2-3 stars potential and impossible to distinguish between from scouting reports. I've found quite a few core players as far down as round 7 but it usually requires me to look at avg rating stats combined with current attributes (I usually avoid anyone with many red attributes aside from snipers and defensemen). I'm not really complaining, I think it adds to the realism. It is certainly better than older versions of EHM where anyone beyond the middle of the 2nd round is almost guaranteed to be a bust.

[VonCurry]

Is there a possibility of players potential changing? Where you might draft a 1/2 star late rounder who could change into a 3/4 star potential?

[nino33]

Is there a possibility of players potential changing? Where you might draft a 1/2 star late rounder who could change into a 3/4 star potential?

Potential (PA) does not change

The stars you're referring to are based on the opinion of Scouts, and they can be incorrect (you will have players overperform/underperform in relation to their drafted "star value" but you won't get a star/superstar player in the late rounds)

[helmespc]

...but you won't get a star/superstar player in the late rounds)

I don't entirely agree with that. It is mostly right, but I've seen a fair number of quality players in the late rounds. I'd say that every few (in-game) years there's a star player (not generational talent, but key player) drafted in the late rounds and plenty of regular/depth players.