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NHL94 Blitz League(s)


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*Signup thread is here http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?showtopic=7148*

OK, I'm finally making a league. Soon. But for real this time.

It's with the Sega Genesis version of the game.

I hope to get some feedback on the design of the league in this thread. What do you like? What don't you like?

Basic Idea:

  • Promotion/relegation between "A", "B", and "C" league
  • "A" league: 12 teams. "B" league: 12 teams. "C" league: everyone else (instead of a waiting list).
  • Weights have been adjusted to reflect the Checking and Aggression ratings of the players (much like VC+Bo's checking ROM). As it turns out, most of the original light guys are still fairly light! Yzerman and Gretz are the exceptions, they're faaat now.
  • Slightly buffed goalies. Hrudey will make TWO saves per game now.
  • Rosters are 6F, 4D, 2G.
  • No line changes. Penalties On. No offsides (too annoying). Shortened OT (2 minutes?).
  • Full stats system
  • You keep half your team between seasons and redraft the rest, so there are only ~6 draft rounds.
  • It's called the Blitz league because I want everything to be fast. Game is fast, draft is fast, season is fast. Aiming for 4 playoffs per year.

Promotion/Relegation:

There will be two main 12-team leagues, the "A" and "B" leagues.

There will be no waiting list -- new players get to play in the "C" league and fight it out for the right to join the "B" league.

There will be a system for promotion/relegation that takes into account multiple seasons, so it takes a couple good or bad seasons to move between leagues (deciding who is in which league for the first season will be a bit tough, though...).

The players are divided up between the A and B leagues. When you are promoted/relegated, you take your team and players (well, half them) with you.

When coaches are promoted from "C" to "B", they take over the teams of the relegated "B" teams.

New Weights to Make the Checking Make Sense

In Gens, there is a bug that makes the Weight of a player the main factor in his checking ability; but it's backwards, so heavy guys are weak and light guys are wrecking balls. It can't be fixed by just reversing the weights, though, because weight also affects acceleration dramatically.

VC introduced me to his and Bo's Checking ROM, and I thought the idea was brilliant. However, I've changed the formula a bit to give more variety to the players and to preserve the fun skating of the fast guys. Also, I weighted it to favour checking more than aggression. I took a lot of care to try to preserve the feel of the original forwards, and to improve the defensemen to be more effective.

Meet your new Bruisers:

Name | Old | New

Messier | 10 | 3

Lindros | 12 | 3

Otto | 11 | 3

Bourque | 10 | 3

Samuelsson | 8 | 3

Neely | 10 | 4

Tikkanen | 9 | 4

Momesso | 11 | 4

Chelios | 7 | 4

Stevens | 11 | 4

McSorley | 14 | 4

Marchment | 8 | 4

Buffed Goalies

The goalies in '94 are disproportionately weak, too. Two are superhuman, then the decline is really steep from there on out.

So, I beefed up the goalies (other than Belfour and Roy) by increasing the Agility rating by 1 and increasing two of their (glove|stick)(left|right) stats by 1. This increased the rating of most goalies by 6 points. I liked the tough goalies in dmitry's first '06 ROM draft league, so I'd like to bring that back. Close games are more fun. I may buff them even more, muwahaha.

Full Stats System

Much like dmitri's Gens Draft League site (GDL Site), but not as nice looking. The

FVHLand NHL94 Dynasty leagues are already using this system, but it's been upgraded lately to support seasons properly, plus I have a few other things up my sleeve that will remain Blitz League only...

Player Retention and Drafting

At the end of the season, you rank your players from best to worst, and then I randomly drop between 5 and 7 of them (3 among the top 6). The higher you rank a player on your team, the higher chance you have of keeping him.

Everyone loses the same ranked players, so, for example, everyone will lose their 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 12th ranked players. Obviously, you must rank your players before I roll the dice to decide which get dropped.

"A" and "B" leagues draft together from the same pool of players. It's just easier that way, with promotion/relegation, because you take can your team with you. Unfortunately, it'll slow the draft down...

I will try to write an automated online draft system, too.

I am tempted to do a hybrid draft system, where some rounds are snaked, and some are not, to try to even out the teams a little with each league. Hopefully this will also prevent some coaches from bouncing back and forth between leagues when their skill level puts them consistently near a league's upper or lower end.

"C" League Details

My idea for the "C" league is that any new coaches can come along and immediately join the league and try to earn their way into the "B" league.

Though "C" leaguers retain/draft their teams between seasons, there are "phantom" coaches that draft players for extra teams so people can join mid-season without getting leftover players.

"C"s (I feel like this is Brave New World.. you lowly Gammas!) play each other an equal number of times, or at least that is how the schedule is set up. If some quit or don't play many games, it doesn't really matter. It takes both dedication and skill to get promoted to "B" (or "A")

There will need to be some provision for really good players stuck in "C" for a while that will allow them to skip up to "A" so they don't demolish the "B" league and score 200 goals with Dave Gagner.

Coach Replacement

Sigh, it's always an issue. I hope the smaller league size will make finishing games easier, but sometimes your life just doesn't let you meet a commitment you thought you could make (I'm sorry Angelina Jolie, it just wasn't the right time for me. Hope we can still be friends again one day.).

I'll think about this more later. Maybe the leading "C" league players will get to jump up midseason, even to the "A" league.

Season Length

4 games against each of the 11 other teams = 44 games. Might be 22 in season 1.

Points: W:2, OTW1.5, T:1, OTL:0.5

Overtime is shortened to 2 minutes.

Games will be released in two batches. Half at the start (2 vs each coach), then the rest maybe 2 or 3 weeks later.

The regular season will have a hard final deadline. Make it. There will also be a mid-season deadline that, though not as rigid as the final deadline, will be quite strict.

I will give the coaches their own page on the website, where they can list their availability, upcoming vacations, and all that. Please don't just disappear and come back later and be upset that I booted you.

Playoffs

Top 8 make the playoffs. 1 vs 8, etc. Re-seed after each round.

Alternately, maybe everyone will make the playoffs, and the top 4 get byes. However, that extra playoff round would add at least a week to the season... I don't want people giving up and trying to get relegated to a lower league, though, so giving everyone a playoff series is tempting.

The higher ranked team gets to choose if they want Home ice advantage or Away ice advantage (if they think they play better that way).

Inaugural Season Teams

This is tricky. I want to keep the "flavour" of the original teams, so right out of the gate, each team has an identity known by the coaches; the identity evolves each season, as some players are traded or lost to the draft.

You get a team from the original ROM with all that team's original players (though the D and G are a bit buffed), then you keep some and draft the rest to fill out a 6F, 4D, 2G roster.

The 24 "A" and "B" league coaches be will be chosen in some method (first come first served when I finally post the sign up thread? must have previously finished a season in another league, completing all games. Rest are in C. subject to change..), then they'll get to pick what team they want from the original 26. You get those players.

After you get your team, you pick/protect your top 3 players you want to keep.

Then, we draft for 3 rounds from all the unprotected players. People with the worst teams (as rated by the original team rating from the Ron Barr screen) pick first in the first round. Maybe it'll snake after that.. not sure. But I feel really bad for those guys who got bad teams (3 people will get expansion teams..), so maybe it won't snake until the 3rd round.

At this point everyone has chosen 6 players.

Next, you pick the next 3 guys from your original roster who you want to keep/protect.

Then we draft another 3 rounds, snaking.

Hopefully this results in relatively even teams.

Maybe you'll only get to protect 2 players to begin with, then draft 2 rounds, protect another, draft 2 rounds, protect 3, draft 2. I'll think about it..

Trading

There is no mid-season trading, unless I discover that, coincidentally, my new upgraded stats system handles trades perfectly (don't count on it).

There will be a trading period after each draft / before the season starts. You can trade after the season / before the draft if you want, but you may lose those players to the draft's random player drop.

Anyway, that's it for now!

Thoughts/suggestions/glaring loopholes?

Volunteers to help out? The automated draft system should simplify things, but a ROM guru would be nice.

I'll put some decisions to votes when things are hammered out a bit more.

*Signup thread is here http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?showtopic=7148*

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Im interested, but wouldnt want to take part of the 'over' competitive 'A' league. I just want to play for fun and I find most of the higher tier leagues too stressful.

Aside from that, great idea smo!

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Im interested, but wouldnt want to take part of the 'over' competitive 'A' league. I just want to play for fun and I find most of the higher tier leagues too stressful.

Aside from that, great idea smo!

Hmm, that's an interesting point. I can't really just let you beat up on the "B" leaguers if you're an "A" league caliber player..

You'd have to just draft bad players and hope that kept you in the league you wanted. I could give you last pick each round or something.

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Ill just draft less skillful lightweights <_<

I prefer using lower rated players anyway

Also like to add, that Ive NEVER been to the Finals in ANY league Ive participated in. So I dont understand why I should have to play in the highest tier league.

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I might have to jump into this. Being a defensive player who uses manual goalie so much you'd think I always have Hrudley in net the beefed up D and goalies sounds great. Considering I don't want to stick around in my own league (it bothers me to be a commish and coach in the same league), no conflict.

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Ill just draft less skillful lightweights <_<

I prefer using lower rated players anyway

Also like to add, that Ive NEVER been to the Finals in ANY league Ive participated in. So I dont understand why I should have to play in the highest tier league.

I see what you're saying (i think).

Still, I don't think it's good to have someone in "B" dominating everyone year after year, just because they don't want to play in "A"... If you're not interested in promotion/relegation, maybe it doesn't really make sense to join the league(s).. Anyone can play in "C" for as long as they like, but ideally "A" and "B" are for players who are trying their best (including in the draft) against people who are as good as they are. Also, if you just pick weaker players, you can arbitrarily decide how good you're going to be that season, so you could decide to win the cup one year, or be average the next.. not cool :P Might be best to take the last pick, or skip a round or something.

Anyway, since I'll probably do non-snaking in parts of the draft, the chances to win the cup should be a bit more even in "A" -- I don't want things to be too predictable from season to season.

Hm, I hope no one tanks a season(s) just so they can get better guys the next season..

But I think your main point was that "A" players are a bit too serious.. not sure what can be done about that. I guess just take it easy in "B" :/

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Also, I think this should be a bicker-free league <_<

Trash talk with your friends all you want, but it's too easy to misinterpret people's meaning online, and things get out of control too easily. If certain people seem to be at the centre of repeated kerfuffles, they may find themselves in the On Beyond Z! league.

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I _might_ have interest in the "C" level (since I completely suck at 94 and have never played online before) depending on the commitment. I've been lurking quite a while and intrigued at trying one of these someday...

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Obviously if I won 'B', I would have to Promote to 'A'. At least give me the chance to win 'B' first, before Regulating me to 'A'.

Ah, should be no problem. Sorting into A and B for the first season will be tricky anyway.. you're "out of practice" these days having dropped from most leagues, so I think "B" is a good starting place :D

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I _might_ have interest in the "C" level (since I completely suck at 94 and have never played online before) depending on the commitment. I've been lurking quite a while and intrigued at trying one of these someday...

cool; this is one of the ideas behind the "C" league, letting newbies get some competitive practice.

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Sounds like a cool league man. Hopefully I will be around way more in the summer so I actually will have time to play in all my leagues.

If you can reserve a spot for me as Vancouver that would be great I am pretty busy at the moment though.

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smomoza your point system is wrong sorry hit me up on AIM and I will regale you with the tale of how overtime loss points, if unchecked, can cause stomach pains, diarrhea, constipation, loose bowels, heartburn, indigestion, and a herpes outbreak (if you have it).

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smomoza your point system is wrong sorry hit me up on AIM and I will regale you with the tale of how overtime loss points, if unchecked, can cause stomach pains, diarrhea, constipation, loose bowels, heartburn, indigestion, and a herpes outbreak (if you have it).

Hehe..

But if I take out the OTL point, imagine how many controllers will explode on contact with walls, floors, desks, family member heads...

Hm.... /buys stock in leading controller manufacturers.

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