Hi all,
Lots of questions about the prospect generator. I'm easier found on Discord, but I got paged here by ECK.
TL;DR:
1. History of PG and apology for the upsets it has caused
2. Aim of the PG
3. Recent Changes to PG to address concerns
4. How I'm moving forward with PG to get it to a final place I'm happy with.
5. Last notes on what the PG doesn't (and can't) do.
6. PA Distribution that the PG does
1. Firstly, I apologise to those who've found the early versions of the prospect generator has not helped their experience. Especially the leagues like FDL, INHL, 5WHL (the original incarnation) etc. who used these. Unfortunately, development of stuff at this scale takes multiple iterations and every lesson that is learnt goes back into the development. Even worse, it often takes 7-10 seasons to see the results, which can be 18-24 months of online league time. As a result, The Prospect Generator is now at v11.2. The aforementioned league were all using pre-v1. The current TBL 12.4.3 rosters use v11.0. NTHL uses v 10.3, XHL uses v11.1. Overall, there's been almost 100 releases of the prospect generator since I first did it in late 2017. Main structural changes shift the header number, smaller tweaks the sequence numbers.
2. The whole aim of the prospect generator is to try and make sure that beyond the existing players, you get a realistic talent distribution in the game and it looks as close to the TBL rosters as possible. Originally, I had a lot of feedback that people wanted to see "sons" of real life players, because quite often that's what happens in real life. I wrote special formulae that copied the attributes and characteristics of the fathers to their sons to try and make them seem similar (Fake Crosby plays similar to Sidney Crosby etc.). The switch from v11.1 to v11.2 removes that (v11.0 to v11.1 drastically reduced the PA's they were generating at, which is important). The fakes retain the same player role as the real players, as well as some non-essential stats like aggression, dirtiness etc. but almost every visible attribute is now with the new generation formulae (one of the main changes from v10.3 to v11.0) that controls every other prospect generated.
3. The current generating formulae are almost there. I'm 95% happy with it. The bits that still need work are I think playmaking forwards need a little increase to their shooting stats when they get to the NHL level. I think smaller players need tweaking to reduce their balance and strength at the NHL level, and perhaps increase their agility too. Some work needs done on player reputations as well, because reputation is not rising fast enough and you see guys with 150CA at age 22 sign ELC extensions at crazy things like 2.5m x 5y. But that's not just a generator problems that affects all players.
4. In a few weeks (timescale dependent), I'm going to open up a wider fun sim sign-up game come beta test thing focussed on nailing down any final generation issues before a move to the future v12 and (I hope) final release before v1.5 comes out and changes everything about prospect development. I have big plans with ECK about incorporating parts of the prospect generator into his ECK databases but before I do anything, I want everything perfect. It's a huge level of responsibility and it needs that level of review.
5. What the prospect generator can't do (so please don't judge me on it).
- I cannot make NHL-ready players out of the draft without completely screwing over the junior levels. I did that before and got pretty heavy abuse for it by parts of the community. EHM just does not do CA acceleration like what happens nowadays. I expect v1.5 might change this a little, but we'll see.
- I cannot currently stop the game from generating other top-end prospects and the eventual talent escalation that comes with it. With that said, even though CA goes up in the later saves 5-10 seasons in, what you see doesn't necessarily change because a guy who grows from 50CA to 150CA will look like a 130CA guy in the TBL Databases. I include for this when I do the PA distributions.
- Once a game is started, there isn't a cure-all for the player archetype issues that I'm aware of. All I can do is apologise and try to make things better. I do try, but I'm just one guy with an hour or so a week - feedback always helps.
6.
Assuming a 10-year average NHL career for a 2nd liner and up, and an average 5-year career for a 3rd liner and down (In a 32-team NHL to allow for not all players make their PA):
= 32*10 = 320 top-end players every 10 years = 32 players per draft average (Starter G, top 3 D, top 6 F)
= 32*13 = 416 bottom-end players every 5 years = 83.2 players per draft average (Backup G, 4-6 D, 7-12 F)
Total = 115.2 players per year
End up with a distribution like this:
Draft Requirements | PA Low | PA High | G | LD | RD | LW | RW | C | TOTAL | CUMULATIVE | -13 | -14 | -15 | -7 | -8 | -9 | -10 | PA Count Per Draft |
Generational | 190 | 200 | 0.05 | 0.025 | 0.025 | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | | | 1.2% | | | | 35.5% | 1 x -10 |
Elite | 180 | 189 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 1.7 | | | 12.3% | | | 3.2% | 32.3% | 1 x -10, 8 x -15 |
Franchise | 170 | 179 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 3.4 | 5.1 | | | 12.3% | | | 32.3% | 32.3% | 1 x -10, 8 x -15, 6 x -9 |
1st Line | 160 | 169 | 1.4 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.7 | 7.9 | 13.0 | | 1.4% | 12.3% | | 3.2% | 32.3% | | 8 x -15, 6 x -9, 20 x -8, 60 x -14 |
2nd Line | 145 | 159 | 3.5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 19.0 | 32.0 | | 21.1% | 18.5% | | 48.4% | 32.3% | | 8 x -15, 6 x -9, 20 x -8, 60 x -14 |
3rd Line | 130 | 144 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 32.0 | 64.0 | 1.4% | 21.1% | 18.5% | 32.3% | 48.4% | | | 8 x -15, 20 x -8, 60 x -14, 30 x -7 |
4th Line | 115 | 129 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 52.0 | 116.0 | 21.1% | 21.1% | 18.5% | 48.4% | | | | 8 x -15, 60 x -14, 30 x -7, 125 x -13 |
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So it means generating the following per year:
- 1 -10PA (random position)
- 8 -15PA (2G, 2C, 1 everything else)
- 6 -9PA (1 every position)
- 20 -8PA (4G, 4C, 3 every other position)
- 60 -14PA (9G, 9C, 7 every other position)
- 30 -7PA (5G, 5C, 4 every other position)
- 125 -13PA (25C, 20 every other position)
Happy prospecting, folks. =]