EHM The Blue Line

First off, amazing work with the editor — I can't imagine the amount of work it took to handle so much raw, interconnected data so smoothly, but hats off to the folks who wrote it and made the UI so clean and intuitive. This is probably a horribly noobish question, but I'm new to the game (and to the editor). I'm playing with the 1998-99 TBL Retro DB and I've been using the editor to tweak contracts and prospects for Dallas.

I noticed that players and non-players, in the editor, have a 0 in several attributes, with hard values in others. For example, Brenden Morrow has values for most of his Technicals but 0 Hitting, mostly 0s in Physicals and his Mentals category is about fifty-fifty between hard values and 0s. My best guess — are the zero attributes set semi-randomly, when a new game is started, based on the player's PA roll?

At first I thought it had something to do with the "absolute" (static) and "relative" (increasing with development) attributes mentioned in the manual. But the manual says that the relative attributes are mostly Technical and Physical, so there can't be any correlation between the zeros and relatives/absolutes (since Morrow's Physicals are mostly 0s and his Technicals only have one 0).

I see a similar phenomenon with non-player staff. Another interesting quirk is that, in the editor, Ken Hitchcock is a much better coach than he is in my actual game: the editor seems to rate him +3 across the board (18 Coaching D-men & Forwards, 11 Man Management, 19 Discipline — in-game, he has 15 Coaching D & F, 8 MM, and 16 Discipline). Again, something to do with his potential maybe? Or perhaps a quirk of importing the 2007-format retro database into EHM1, or opening it with the editor?

Assuming this isn't caused by the 2007 format, then these were values set by the creator of the 1998-99 TBL Retro database, and this might not be the best place to ask. But he's apparently MIA, and I figured you guys would know what's up with the 0s. Many thanks in advance, I'm very grateful for any clarification!

affablePeafowl wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:57 amare the zero attributes set semi-randomly, when a new game is started, based on the player's PA roll?

Nearly. Any zero-rated attributes will be automatically generated each time you start a new game and these are based on the player/non-player's Current Ability and, in the case of players, his Player Role as well.

affablePeafowl wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:57 am First off, amazing work with the editor — I can't imagine the amount of work it took to handle so much raw, interconnected data so smoothly, but hats off to the folks who wrote it and made the UI so clean and intuitive.

Thanks! It's basically a full-time job!

archibalduk wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:43 am

affablePeafowl wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:57 amare the zero attributes set semi-randomly, when a new game is started, based on the player's PA roll?

Nearly. Any zero-rated attributes will be automatically generated each time you start a new game and these are based on the player/non-player's Current Ability and, in the case of players, his Player Role as well.

affablePeafowl wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:57 am First off, amazing work with the editor — I can't imagine the amount of work it took to handle so much raw, interconnected data so smoothly, but hats off to the folks who wrote it and made the UI so clean and intuitive.

Thanks! It's basically a full-time job!

Makes sense! Thanks so much for the reply (ditto for the other thread, all this info is super helpful to a noob like me). If you don't mind sparing the time to answer another noob question, player roles (i.e. Finesse Playmaker, Physical Point Man, etc.) are set in stone from the beginning, right? And attributes will develop based on role (key/essential vs. non-essential/irrelevant) rather than the role changing in response to attribute growth? If I understand that correctly, the only thing I'd REALLY care to change is Brenden Morrow's role of Grinder, since his Offensive Role and Off the Puck attribs presumably won't develop, and he won't become the top-six Power Forward/Physical Goal-Scorer he was IRL. Of all Dallas's skater prospects in the '98 DB, Morrow was the only one who wasn't a colossal bust, so I wanna make sure I know what I'm actually doing before I make any tweaks to him to get accurate development.

Yes I believe once they're set at the database, they don't change. I'm not sure if/how it affects the development of players once the game has started. nino33 did a lot of research on this in the past. You might want to take a look at the following threads:

https://ehmtheblueline.com/forums/viewt ... 93#p220393
https://ehmtheblueline.com/forums/viewt ... 10&t=16777

(edit: deleted a double post, apparently I rolled a 1 on my posting skills)

Yes I believe once they're set at the database, they don't change. I'm not sure if/how it affects the development of players once the game has started. nino33 did a lot of research on this in the past. You might want to take a look at the following threads:

https://ehmtheblueline.com/forums/viewt ... 93#p220393
https://ehmtheblueline.com/forums/viewt ... 10&t=16777

Oddly enough I've restarted twice for different reasons, and on both subsequent new games, Morrow's classified in the Editor and Assistant as a Power Forward instead of a Grinder (without me making any edits, that is). His OFF/DEF role values are 14/14 and he has quite a few zero attribs, so there's a massive number of possible Brenden Morrows that can exist (what a team that would be... for a couple of years anyway... sigh.) I figured it had something to do with importing the 2007-format database, the OR/DR ratio at runtime when the zeros are filled in, etc. I would've attributed it to an edit I forgot making the first time, but the second time I re-imported the DB first, fresh from the zip. That said, it could still be due to something I did to the _first_ save to make the Assistant read him as a Grinder, but that was my first time using either of the utilities and IIRC all I had done was tweak some salaries (I love Brian Skrudland, who knows what would've happened if Hitchcock had been forced to stick with Plante/Hrkac at 4C, but I have no idea why he's making nearly 2mil in CJ's DB )

More to the point, I've had that second link opened in a tab for several days and it's proven extremely valuable. The first link is new to me though and likewise it's incredibly helpful and something that'll definitely be a huge resource, thanks a ton for sharing it.

Re: roles (the string values, not the numbers) affecting development, a number of Shindigs' old posts have been very helpful to me as well, and in his scouting thread he mentions different "costs" associated with each attribute ranging across 0.2x, 0.5x and "full" cost. That said, I have no idea what the base value is to which those modifiers apply. If it's just a "point" of CA, then given the fact that a point of CA corresponds roughly to ten actual attribute points, we'd expect every five points in Speed (a "20% cost" attrib) to increase CA by one, while only one point in Deflections (a "full cost" attrib) would also increase CA by one. That seems horribly backwards and unintuitive, but then again, that's the basis for Shindigs' case against physical/goony player types (expensive yet less-useful Keys and Essentials), so it makes sense.

Of course, that still doesn't explain exactly how role types (which themselves are presumably only different profiles of relative weights/priorities on attributes) affect development, what the other inputs are, or to what extent pure RNG is a factor, etc., but has it been your experience that these relative "costs" per attribute—which are apparently uniform even across the different player roles/types—have some nebulous effect on development?

edit: And regarding some non-player staff attributes appearing lower in-game than in the utilities, as seen here (Hitchcock's attributes in-game and in Assistant):

I think I figured this out: is it because his CA of 155 is too low to represent the under-the-hood attribute values he was given? So the game needs to subtract a point from several of them so that his in-game CA does in fact average out to 155? (edit 2: oddly enough, his values are even higher in the database itself, 18 Coaching Forwards/D-Men, etc. On average they're 3 higher in the DB/Editor, and one point higher in the save file/Assistant. 155 CA is definitely too low for the DB values CJ entered, so maybe the Assistant is telling me his accurate re-balanced attribs, and the Fog of War option is applying to my own Head Coach in-game?)