AI Teams letting key UFAs walk

jdh79 · Post by **jdh79** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 12:17 pm

Why does it seem that AI teams are too quick to allow key FAs to walk? For example, the AI Flyers almost always let Forsberg walk at the end of year 1. However, I have been playing them and was able to resign him at 5.25/yr for 2 more years just before the season started. Yes, he is old and injury prone, but 5.25 mill is very reasonable for a guy of his calibre. There's also no real reason for them to do it; Pitkanen, Richards, Carter, Niitymakki, etc. don't start to become expensive until after year 4.

Maybe it's because the way I handle expiring free agents exploits the AI too much? Basically, I always start negotiating with expiring UFAs that I know I want to keep in the summer before their contract year starts. Even if they say they don't want to negotiate, if you try and offer a contract, the dollar values and contract length that show on the contract signing screen generally tells you what they would accept. In fact, you can usually go 1 extra year or drop the dollar amount 1-2 clicks on the +/- slider and they will still accept that. I will always do this and just sign the guys I want for this amount unless I have reason to believe that their value and contract demands will decrease if I wait until during/after the season. The other big benefit of getting contracts signed early is it updates the Salary Cap Chart in the Finances section and makes it easier to plan whether you can sign that extra big contract and how much cap room to spend you likely will have in the offseason.

Post by **Shadd666** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 12:32 pm

Sure, the AI sometimes let walk UFAs too easily... But keep in mind that it's just an Artificial Intelligence, not a real person with a real brain, that manages the team. So basically, yes, AI makes mistakes. Or sometimes the AI just simulates the mistakes that the real life GM should have made. In this case, the AI works well. But you can never really now if it's an AI mistake or if it's that the EHM version of the GM suck. Anyway, there's nothing to be done about that. Maybe editing GMs abilities, but i'm not sure about the impact and how much it would trouble the balance of the game.

Btw, if the AI doesn't challenge you hard enough, don't hesitate to join us in the next challenge

jdh79 · Post by **jdh79** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 12:42 pm

If I was to go and edit the attributes of the AI GM's, what attributes would control their decisions on resigning players or not? You would think evaluating player potential or ability, but is it that they don't know their players are good or that they have an aversion to paying them what they are worth. Or, would it be a good idea just to set all their attributes to 20s to increase the challenge level? It also might be that their coaches, assistant GM, scouts, etc suck and are giving bad advise, so might it not then become necessary to adjust the attributes of all their staff too?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:18 pm

Personally, I'm not too fond of the AI's signing skills either. Far too many big-name players basically become nomads, jumping from team to team, from the end of year one to the day they retire.

As for editing the GM's, I have a feeling that it wouldn't do much. I think it's some kind of 'allowance' setting in the code which determines how many players, on average, should become free agents each year. Kind of like the coding for determining the average numbers for each nationality appearing/drafted in the Entry Draft.

jdh79 · Post by **jdh79** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 5:28 pm

I think that part of it may be that the AI seems to have an aversion to getting really close to the cap. I have tried to trade a team a $1 mill player when they are at 40 M cap usage and they refuse on financial grounds, so I think they have an artificial limit of around 40 that they try to stay under.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:12 pm

It gets worse as you go on. The further into the game you get, the more money players make. After about 3 or 4 years you've got star players that no NHL team can afford to sign. When they do try to sign them, they "give up on them", essentially the deal falls through. You end up with a lot of players making more than they should an a lot of stars sitting out for most of the season before signing for cheap money late in the season. For example, in my challenge game, Iginla signed with the Bruins for something like $2M for one year. After that ran our he signed a long term deal for about $3M per season.

Post by **Shadd666** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 12:04 am

No need to go very far sometimes... I'm just in season 3 of the challenge. Lecavalier is still free agent, while the regular season is over

The Ducks waived both Selänne and Rolston at the start of the season. No-one claimed them! Now they're making a terrific duo in the AHL

Ai is not perfect, code is not perfect, but heh, it remains a very good game nonetheless!

helmespc · Post by **helmespc** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:58 pm

I think a bigger problem is the way AI handles placing key players on waivers.... I constantly see high quality players hitting the waiver wire with no chance of making it through... it seems like the AI has no concept of "I'm going to lose this guy"....

gibson41 · Post by **gibson41** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 6:16 pm

This happens to me often. The waived stars or free agent - stars...both of them. I saw Bruins waved Fernandez, Rask in a small amount of time

weird...also, each year i can see some $2 mil guys in a waiver wire in pre-season. I also agree about the too-many-moves by players during their season. Detroit Red Wings has become undoubtly worst team in few years. I believe this would not happen in real time, their roster just totally got screwed up. Marc Denis was their starting goalie, nuff?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 6:41 pm

it seems like the AI has no concept of "I'm going to lose this guy"....

That is, until you try to acquire that player in a trade... then suddenly he's sliced bread.

Post by **batdad** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 6:42 pm

Yeah the Wings AI is odd for sure. But the top players on the Wings are underrated in the game to some extent (with the exception of their lack of playoff successes). And the $2 mill salary waives...seen that alot in the NHL since the cap came in folks. Not with superstars but:

Todd Marchant, Eric Chouinard, Ilya Bryzgalov, Sergei Samsonov (like 10 times), some Hurricane cannot recall who...

IT is going to happen more as well in real life, because of the cap. If someone does not perform to his salary...and the team cannot move him(because of his salary) you are going to see that guy put on waivers and moved that way because it is the only way to get rid of the salary.

So in reality, EHM is not that far off the mark there.

Had the Hawks not been able to deal Martin Lapointe at the deadline, I fully expected to see him on waivers as well. It is going to happen alot more.

russman · Post by **russman** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:40 pm

batdad wrote:So in reality, EHM is not that far off the mark there.

Yeah I agree 100% with this, sometimes players who arent performing in real life need to be waived to get rid of their salary, this is pretty well implemented actually. For example Marc Denis - in a non cap league he would be the Lightning backup even though he is underacheiving, they would be able to afford his salary.

bigargon · Post by **bigargon** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:07 am

I noticed another thing that happens for European NHL stars players. They will ask for too much. no one will sign them. then they will play for a team in their home country, Then you can sign them cheap, getting after the transfer window. i did that a few times during the Blackhawk challenge

helmespc · Post by **helmespc** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:07 am

I noticed another thing that happens for European NHL stars players. They will ask for too much. no one will sign them. then they will play for a team in their home country, Then you can sign them cheap, getting after the transfer window. i did that a few times during the Blackhawk challenge

A similar thing happens if you have RFA's that you can't get to sign.... after their contract is up, they will certainly want less. This can be exploited time after time... there's almost no reason to ever sign a RFA before their contract is up. Simply qualify them, then let them "walk" and sign them in the summer for less. If the AI was more brutal with giving offer sheets, it would have cut back on this.... but as is, its exploitable unfortunately....

Post by **Shadd666** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:44 pm

helmespc wrote:but as is, its exploitable unfortunately....

... but nothing forces you to exploit it

Loosie · Post by **Loosie** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:06 pm

I my Leafs season (currently in '17-'18 Season).. Pittsburgh let Crosby go after the 2016 season....Washington signed him...and now Ovechkin is blowing the league away in goals...he had 72 the first season with Crosby on his line. And they distroyed us in the Confernce Finals (but lost in 7 to Chicago)

Post by **Danny** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:46 am

Slightly OT...or not...but has actually anyone tried changing the teams budget with the Editor before starting a game ? I'm about to start a new career with the latest TBL database (cap 50m) and I was wondering whether adjusting the budget to the maximum might help prevent teams letting key players walk into free agency or trade them for a bag of pucks just because their salary is apparently too high. Does the approach to negotiations for players and AI GMs actually change in the game when you change the cap, as it does in real life ?

Post by **Tasku** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:48 pm

Editing only the budget won't actually change the budget for some silly reason. You also have to edit the salaries, and even then your total salaries must be significantly over the given budget for the budget to be taken into the game.

Trust me, I've tried...

Post by **Danny** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:57 pm

Ok. Did you use the pre-game or the in-game editor ? Because one changes it in the database and the other just in that particular save game.

Post by **Tasku** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:01 pm

Pre-Game.

Post by **Danny** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:05 pm

Ok, thanks, will give the save game editor a try. Just need to find it

pinheirobcp · Post by **pinheirobcp** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:38 pm

You won't have a problem with the Save Game editor, I'm sure. I have never experienced anything and I've changed budgets, team money and salary cap.

I might be wrong, though, but I'm pretty sure I've read it somewhere that the Players negotiate the salaries like there is a salary cap of 44mi (or whatever it is at the original db). So, in teory, salaries won't escalate and AI GMs will be able to keep more players.

In a save game I've been playing up to 2016, the number of key players hitting the UFA marked has not dropped significantly, but with the increased cap, I've noticed problems like the Iginla's, Thornton's and Lecavalier's going unsigned for the whole season has not happened. Not until they are 42 and can't skate, anyway. Many people say they experience that kind of problem as the game goes on, so I supose it's because of the increased cap.