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Hey, can anyone fill me in on exactly how the home/away advantages, Hot & cold streaks, momentum swings during games etc tend to work.

Me & Iceguy played out Blitz series & it seemed so obvious that there was a big home advantage each game. His 2 at home he beat me easy. I could hardly keep the puck, with countless passes going to nowhere, or straight back to him, my D kept pushing up, leaving ridiculous space behind, the CPU defense was so dumb that I often found myself changing to a guy just too late to stop him shooting off in the opposite direction to the puck whilst in my own zone, and 7 weight Mogilny was at times impossible to put down, bouncing of what seemed like perfectly good hits. I seemed to be totally over-run.

In my home games it seemed much the same in my favour, with Mogilny far easier to put down, and far less effective.

I think it's good to have home advantage, where maybe the away player's passing & shooting is lowered to simulate the possible effects of playing away, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who gets very mad when you can just tell you're up against more than the opponent? At times you can just smell a goal coming, and losing a game you were winning comfortably after the momentum of the game just swung totally against you has to be one of the most frustrating things to happen in the game.

Are these effects hackable & changeable or what?

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Hey, can anyone fill me in on exactly how the home/away advantages, Hot & cold streaks, momentum swings during games etc tend to work.

Me & Iceguy played out Blitz series & it seemed so obvious that there was a big home advantage each game. His 2 at home he beat me easy. I could hardly keep the puck, with countless passes going to nowhere, or straight back to him, my D kept pushing up, leaving ridiculous space behind, the CPU defense was so dumb that I often found myself changing to a guy just too late to stop him shooting off in the opposite direction to the puck whilst in my own zone, and 7 weight Mogilny was at times impossible to put down, bouncing of what seemed like perfectly good hits. I seemed to be totally over-run.

In my home games it seemed much the same in my favour, with Mogilny far easier to put down, and far less effective.

I think it's good to have home advantage, where maybe the away player's passing & shooting is lowered to simulate the possible effects of playing away, but i'm sure i'm not the only one who gets very mad when you can just tell you're up against more than the opponent? At times you can just smell a goal coming, and losing a game you were winning comfortably after the momentum of the game just swung totally against you has to be one of the most frustrating things to happen in the game.

Are these effects hackable & changeable or what?

Sometimes the bounces don't go your way I guess, but there are people who find it easier to score and deke going up

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I totally know what you mean Robbie. There are just certain times or matchups whether against another player or CPU where the game just totally goes against you. Cannot shoot or pass accurately, and your players are either over pursuing then being always late to react by a second or simply just in the wrong spot whether it be 5 on 5 or a PP situation. It is annoying at times, but yet impressive that a game from that era adjusts on the fly and has these little wrenches they throw at you. I have had some games vs the CPU where they literally shoot 8/8 with 100% accuracy and you just know a certain shot is a going to be a goal even before it has left the stick.

Edited by batbl18
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Check out related threads in the gens editing section (find them through the Thread Guide thread). I've written quite a bit about this before.

When you're home, your guys gets small boosts to some of their skills.

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Anyone who has played hundreds of games knows what you're talking about. Certain games are just set up with an advantage for one team vs. another. That's the whole reason people call timeouts, change lines, switch goalies, etc...all an attempt change the flow of the game (none of these methods, afaik, have been proven to work).

There's definitely things the AI does during the game that changes the dynamics. When I was practicing to break the "biggest blowout" goals for Twin Galaxies, there was a period of time in every game when the CPU just went into the "NO WAY YOU ARE SCORING" mode. Shots wide, failed one-timers, missed passes, beastly checks from CPU, offensive players skating AWAY from the puck, etc. It's so obvious, and quite laughable when I'm struggling to score a goal using All-Stars West vs Anaheim.

I also strongly believe that you are less likely to score the exact same goal the second time around during a game. Either the goalie "learns" or your player doesn't play as well. For example, let's take the slapshot through the 5-hole goal. Do that with the same player and same goalie in one game. I bet the success rate (goals/attempts) of the 1st goal is much higher than the 2nd and subsequent goals (if possible). The goalie will either stop it, or your player will start shooting into the stands. I think this will hold true for just about any kind of goal, within reason.

As far as home ice advantage -- every league (classic, blitz, survivor) shows a better home record than away. However, it's unclear whether this is a bias for people who prefer shooting up (twice home) vs down or actual game attributes that favor home. Smozoma mentions some affect on shooting accuracy, etc for home ice and pp/pk advantages.

Here's a few links to threads dealing with this topic:

Home Ice: http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/12665-home-ice-advantage/page__hl__home

Up/Down Survey: http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/4570-do-you-do-better-going-up-or-down/

Smozoma's Hot/Cold bug fix (and explanation): http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/12074-how-to-make-the-edit-lines-ratings-match-the-actual-on-ice-ratings/

At the end of the day, there is no definitive answer as to what causes these momentum swings. It's why you can have scores like 8-0 and then 2-4 in consecutive games with the same teams. When you feel the deck is stacked against you, just try to hold on and ride it out. Perhaps try a timeout, line change, goalie change, etc.

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I know exactly what you mean about trying to set the blowout record. near the end of a well-played period, the opponent gets good and you get bad. with twenty-minute periods, this seems to occur mostly at five minutes left in the first through the fifth minute of the second. also, I don't buy into the "slight" boosts. when I was playing the original on my SNES console last week, I saw something that seems very common... I was trying to set my personal best (~120). I was using a slow (~42) player on one wing due to his other skills (sorry that I forget exactly who, but I will edit the name in if/when I figure it out/remember). thing is, he was flying all over the ice at extremely high speeds, faster than guys rated 80-100. it wasn't his weight, either; that was average like the rest of the team. the game seems to give positional or personal (can't quite tell; it might be the starting right wing, if he's subbed in before the loadup) boosts and the opposite (one of the defensemen) to the home team and similar but opposite effects for the visitor (seems like strong center, weak wings, one strong defenseman). I think Smoz has the slight boosts figured out (with his ratings fixes and stuff), but I also think certain players or positional starters get extreme ratings adjustments. I have yet to see a real correlation to hot/cold announcements; it seems to be more random... maybe it's one player of each type or position or something. I wish we understood exactly what was happening when the game seems to go into shutdown mode or momentum swing mode and how player boosts really work.

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That super-speed slow guy seems to be a SNES bug. Doesn't happen in Genesis. Guys only vary up to about half a point (on the 0-6 scale) from their base rating due to hot/cold, and get a little bit extra on a few stats if home (or extra aggression if away).

(under the hood, the 0-6 ratings become 0-30, then bonuses/penalties are applied to that. You can be hot/cold from -2 to +3 points. or was it -3 to +2.)

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a SNES bug? you mean a feature, right?

interesting that they are different in this aspect. it seems like the SNES version replicates most of this type of stuff as close to the proverbial letter as popsicle. it's weird to me that this is so different.

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Anyone who has played hundreds of games knows what you're talking about. Certain games are just set up with an advantage for one team vs. another. That's the whole reason people call timeouts, change lines, switch goalies, etc...all an attempt change the flow of the game (none of these methods, afaik, have been proven to work).

I don't know about vs. the cpu, but I've seen these methods dramatically change the flow of games on snes vs. online opponents over the last few years I've played. They may not be 'proven' per se, but I'd say that they work at least some of the time. Here's a few examples I can remember:

1) vs. Grayto in late 2010/early 2011. This is the best example because of how poor of a player I was back then. Grayto was using PHI and I was using MTL. He was stomping me 5-0 through the first period. I pulled Patrick Roy and put in Racicot in net without any other substitutions. Suddenly over the next 2 periods, his players went cold and mine got hot. I ended up coming back and winning the game 7-5. I definitely won due to the AI in this instance because I was not skilled in many vital areas at the time. Stephan LeBeau played out of his mind defensively after an extremely poor start. Kirk Muller started getting very physical and Brian Bellows started finding a lot of open areas for passing plays.

2) vs. Fenty in the Summer of 2011. Fenty was using his beloved LA Kings and I was using WPG. I went down 3-0 in the 1st period and immediately changed my line. I subbed out Thomas Steen for Evgeny Davydov. The line of Zhamnov-Selanne-Davydov immediately responded by skating to open areas, knocking down opposing players, etc. I ended up winning the game 9-3.

3) vs. Houly in late 2011/early 2012. Houly (MTL) was leading 4-0 thru 2 periods against me (EDM). I called a timeout near the end of the period and noticed that Petr Klima was flying around the ice hitting open areas after play resumed. At the 2nd intermission, I put Klima in at Center and moved Craig Simpson to Right Wing. Yet again, everyone started getting open (especially Klima) and being more physical. I won the game 6-4 on 6 3rd period goals!

Edited by Oilers442
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