All, being new to this site, I have leaned a lot of new information in the last couple days. The biggest and most important bit of information being how weight affects players in this game. I always knew, intuitively, that Fleury, Gilmour, ect.. were very hard to knock off the puck. But, being that those are very small guys in real life, I never really knew why. now.. I know. After reading a ton of comments in a few different threads about what people generally think makes a player valuable (big shoutout to AJs lineup guides), and then playing a bunch of games last night, paying attention to specific attributes, I think I came up with a formula for evaluating a player's overall skill. I have seen some threads around here assigning a weight to each individual category, but I think that looking at each category individually is a bit flawed. certain attributes work together, to create a finished product. Shot power alone does not make you a great shooter, nor does shot accuracy alone, but a combination of the two does. Additionally, speed is nice, but without comparable agility and weight, it can be worthless. don't believe me? go play a game with Randy Wood. his 5 speed is great, but his 8 weight and 1 agility make him impossible to work with and, thus, worthless out there. Here's how I arrived at my formulas. I came up with an Individual score for each player. This is a score made up the attributes that are specific to that player alone and not affected by what other people are doing on the ice. This is made up of Total Shot, Weight Value, and Total Speed. Total Shot ((Shot Power*2.5)+shot accuracy))*1.25 -while both shot power and shot accuracy have value, the power is simply way more important. you wanna test this theory out? go put Petr Nedved in your starting lineup for VAN. he has 6 shot accuracy with only 2 shot power. it's a worthless shot. If that shot had any value, I guarantee way more people would insert him in their lineup given is 5 weight. But, alas, worthless. On the other hand, Kamensky, Gardner, and Wendell Clark all have 5 power. 3 accuracy shots. tell me you don't love winding up with any of those 3 guys. All that said, though, accuracy does have some value. I'll take Roenick or Ciccarrelli's 5/5 shot over the 3 above any day. accuracy is simply a compliment to a powerful shot, rather than a stand alone value. highest shot score is Hull with 22.5, followed by the 3 5/5 shot guys at 21.9. Weight Value ((12-Weight)*1.5)+2 This was a little tricky to give an appropriate value to weight. I started with the number 12, because a 12 weight player is the fattest forward anyone would consider playing with (Eric Lindros). So, for Lindros his value starts at (12-his weight (12))=0. so, Lindros' 0 score is the baseline. everyone else receives some type of value for their weight. next, I multiplied by 1.5 so that the separation between weights was a bit more valuable. instead of a 4 weight player being only 1 point more valuable than a 5 weight player, he is now 1.5 points more valuable. next I added 2 to everyone's number. This added a bit more value to the weight category (compared with speed and shot) without disrupting the point distribution comparatively with the players. Fleury and Kovalenko are the top scorers in weigh with 15.5 points. That may seem a bit low compared to the points awarded for Total shot, but, as you'll see, weight gets awarded again as it relates to speed. Total Speed (this one gets a bit complex) (((Speed*2)+(Agility*1.3)+(Weight Value/2))/3)*2.5 ok.. here goes.. All things being equal (which they never are), Speed is a bit more valuable than agility. not by a lot, but it is. Thus, in this score, Speed gets a x2 multiplier, whereas agility only gets a 1.3x multiplier.. Would you take Bondra's 6 speed, 4 agl over Gretzky's 4/6? The first thing you'd say is.. Well, i'm not sure. "I mean gretzky is lighter so he gets moving quicker, which offsets the speed difference a bit..." Like I said, all things are never equal. but, anyways.. you would. if they were the same weight.. so. let's factor in weight. We already have a value for everyone's weight, but adding in the whole value would devalue speed adn agility too much, so I had to add a divisor. I tried divisors of 2,3, and to see how they affected the overall number and then tested them out on the game. The players I compared, due to their speed and various weights were Mogilny 6 spd, 6 agl, 7 weight, Bure 6/5/5, Selanne 6/5/6, Fleury 5/5/3, and Roenick 5/5/4. first I compared the 6 speed guys. Bure is the fastest. There's not doubt about it. They all fly in a straight line, but Bure just gets up to top speed so quick. The other two feel a bit clunkier especially on direction changes. Selanne feeling the clunckiest of the 3. Then I added Fleury into the mix. Fleury is decidedly not as fast as Bure and Mogilny. Those two are on another level. But, after playing more than an hour straight with Selanne, then Fleury, then Selanne, then Fleury, etc. etc.. I came to the conclusion that Fleury is faster. maybe not in a straight-line race down the boards, but Fleury is much quicker and in most applicable in-game uses, I'll take Fleury's speed/quickness over Selanne's. but, it's very close. Next I tested out Roenick 5/5/4 vs. Selanne. Roenick is Boss, but from a speed standpoint it's just not at Selanne's level. So, after that testing, I fount the divisor that represented my in-game findings (2) and applied. next, because speed was the addition of 3 cats, while shooting was only to, speeds total number was heavily outweighing shooting. easy fix. divide all 3 speed cats by 3, then multiply the total by 2.5 (which evens its weight with Shot value). done and done. Top total speed score was Bure with 20.6, mogilny with 20.5 (Interestingly enough, Gretzky and Bondra end up right next to eachother at 19.0 and 18.9
, respectively) The addition of these three game everyone an individual score. then I added in everyone's intangibles. This was just a straight addition of Off Aware, Def Aware, Stick Handling, and Passing. The sum of all these parts gives each player a total value. See the top 30 listed below. let me know your thoughts!!!