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Closing the gap between GENS A and B players


HABS

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4 minutes ago, Uncle Seth said:

If you stifle TK's creativity he just becomes a boring-ass cheesballer, scoring only on slap-dekes.  

no son, I just end up on autopilot after 3000 exis in 30 days against a cb whore

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4 hours ago, Premium said:

Death to the CB check!

Easily one of the worst features of NHL '94.

In classic type I must disagree completely, the "fatties" would lose a lot of usability again. I propably would not even play anymore in cb removed classic physics leagues.

I agree completely with this in wbfixed roms though.

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5 hours ago, LTNINGFan said:

I think the only time I have used CB is on faceoffs. I don't remember even trying it in regular play. Now I am curious to see what it does..

The CB check is a bug that makes it possible to successfully check more players than you normally could.

First, you need to understand another bug, the Weight Bug: Checking in the original game is based on weight. If you use a light player and check a player who is 8+ 16+ pounds HEAVIER than him, the check is likely to succeed and knock the guy over. This is why guys like Lemieux, Neely, Lindros, and so on aren't very useful when playing against other people, because they'll just put a quick light guy on the ice who can knock them over easily.

Plabax observed, however, that when the CPU checks, the checks obey common sense logic: heavy players were checking lighter players successfully. So then he figured out that if you throw a C check to speed boost at a player (so you need a light player in order to check a heavy player), but then immediately click the B button to turn your boosting player into a CPU player (so heavy players can check light players). 

This makes it so you can check any player with any other player by using either a C check (light vs heavy) or CB check (heavy vs light).

Not that you couldn't check any player already with the B check (trip check), but now you can use the speed boost to close the distance.

(I'm not sure what weight ranges work with CB check, it could be that players of equal weight still can't knock each other over consistently..)

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My problem with the CB check is that you get the best of both worlds when drafting: Drafting a player for body checking should result in a sacrifice of skill, and drafting a player for skill should result in a sacrifice of body checking.

When a non CB checker like me goes to draft a player like Larry Murphy, the ability to body check is sacrificed. If I wanted a body checker, I would have to draft a player like Russell, Hynes, etc. However, when a CB checker goes to draft a player for body checking, they don't need to sacrifice any skill because the most ideal body checker is going to be one of the best players available. When a CB checker drafts Larry Murphy, you aren't sacrificing anything in missing out on Gord Hynes and Cam Russell because what they offer (body checking) is covered by the CB check.

If I wanted a solid body checking defenseman, I would have to draft one of Sweeney, Zhitnik, Lidstrom or Svoboda. All of which are drafted too high in the sense that there are more skilled players available. This is not the case for CB checkers.

Since I don't want to body check, I go for the skilled players. However the pool of skilled players is worse than it should be because the CB checkers have been taking from it. When the CB checkers should have been taking Zhitnik, they were taking Zalapski, putting the non CB checkers at a disadvantage.

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During the Plabax League draft, Raph had a comment along the lines of "why would I draft Mark Messier without the CB check?". Even though Messier was probably the best or close to the best player available without the CB check, this comment was made.Knowing that Messier is a skilled player, we can come to the conclusion that Raph values body checking more than skill. Without the CB check, I assume Raph would go for the best checker available regardless, who would be someone like Gary Leeman, Nelson Emerson or Dallas Drake. Out of these players, Messier is the only one who is actually skilled. Messier has 5 agility, 5 stickhandling and high awareness. Without the CB check, who are the only good body checkers who have similar skillsets? Wayne Gretzky, Pat LaFontaine and Doug Gilmour. Or you could settle for Denis Savard/Pelle Eklund, all who you can almost never draft at a position as low as you can Messier.

So, instead of Raph drafting Gary Leeman and leaving Messier for me, he drafts Messier and leaves me with the next best guy (assuming he wants to body check and I don't).

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You can say I can't complain because I'm making the choice to never CB check, but I just don't feel good about doing it when there are others who don't CB check. 

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45 minutes ago, smozoma said:

First, you need to understand another bug, the Weight Bug: Checking in the original game is based on weight. If you use a light player and check a player who is 8+ pounds HEAVIER than him, the check is likely to succeed and knock the guy over. This is why guys like Lemieux, Neely, Lindros, and so on aren't very useful when playing against other people, because they'll just put a quick light guy on the ice who can knock them over easily.

16 pounds, not 8.

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I disagree that C/B puts someone at a draft disadvantage.  C/B is a NEW ability, so it is a NEW value.  It gets added into the players ability.  He NOW can check / play BETTER defense and actually stop JR type players in their tracks.

 

I think that in previous GDL drafts, the coach who was willing to select FAT, but skilled players had MORE skilled players to choose from, because many coaches WOULD NOT draft them earlier rounds if they were a limited on their defensive ability (could only B check) and ALSO could be C checked easy from all angles.

 

NOW, because they can C/B, they have additional value.   Not only can they NOW play better defense, but they can TAKE C/B checks from heavier defensive teams, or, skate in the offensive zone with the puck for more than 1.5 seconds!

 

That value is a two way street.  IF you draft them earlier, you gain the added value.  This added value is there for everyone.  Because it is a KNOWN value at the start of the draft, ALL coaches in the draft have the same advantage/disadvantages.  IF you choose to intentionally NOT use a player's ability, that is ON you.

 

Just like I don't PASS SHOT, I don't start the drafts out complaining how I am AT A DISADVANTAGE because Damphousse doesn't have the same value to me as he does to Ice.  IT's my own fault/limitation that creates this, so the complaint will go to deaf ears.

I just don't buy into that by drafting checking, I SHOULD be sacrificing skill, because there are ALSO plenty of skilled players that can check like crazy.  See, JR, Yzerman and Bure.  So, you really have to bend the narrative imo to make this argument fit. 

DO you directly draft a worse team with C/B being allowed?  Yes.  I agree on that, but as a guy who used to draft heavier teams himself, I run into the same issues, except NOW my fat players are actually BETTER at actually playing than they were for me before, so I see an uptick in their overall value.

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And, regardless of draft value, I think the overall game's PLAY has drastically changed as a result of the C/B discovery, which was the original conversation running within the A/B conversation.

 

IT 1000%%% changed how you play offense, defense and who you use in your starting lineup.

 

There are valid arguments on both sides of the fence IMO, to whether this is an added bonus or detriment to the game's overall playing experience. 

 

To me, if I play an opponent who abuses B shot, then I tend to feel it's not as fun.  IF I play an opponent who abuses C/B, then I feel it's not as fun, as these were not things I found made the game enjoyable. 

 

Oddly, Ice abuses the B shot, and when he gets it going hog crazy, I don't enjoy the game as much, but he's the first guy to state he doesn't like playing against a heavy C/B guy because it changes if he enjoys the game!

 

Anyhow, different strokes for different folks.  I don't think there is a wrong/right answer.

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I'm not a fan of the CB check.  Actually, when I started playing back in 2006, I was a holdout on the B check (it's tripping / low-blow!).

Weight bug fix with CB removed seems like the best way to play. Heavy players are slow but physically powerful. Light players are quick but physically vulnerable. It's really unfortunate that they created the checking bugs (although it did give us Roenick's godlike status, which wouldn't have existed for any player in a no-weight-bug game).

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It's a disadvantage for those who do not CB check because you cannot have the best of both worlds otherwise. Drafting someone for skill means no body checking and vice versa (outside of the top players). In Blitz, you can draft Neely or you can draft Yzerman. You can draft Carson or you can draft LaFontaine. In classic (No CB), you can draft Pedersen or you can draft Scott Stevens, or you can draft Kovalenko/Bradley vs. Lemieux. There is no such tradeoff with the CB check.

Without the CB check, you CANNOT build a skilled team of body checkers. Just like how you can't do it in Blitz. With the CB check you can, but the non CB checkers can't, and the non CB checkers now no longer have selection to quality of players that they would have otherwise, so that's where I feel the disadvantage comes in.

A guy like Jagr or Messier is a perfect example. There are no mid-round players who can body check with 5 agility and 5 stickhandling. Jimmy Carson is another example. There are no mid-round players who can body check and shoot the puck. It's impossible to even draft a good player who can body check past the second round. Now you can draft good players who can body check in rounds 3,4,5,6 and so on and there really is nothing to compensate for those who don't CB check.

Yes it's my choice to NOT CB check, but I draft players based on their skill. Because of this I should get picks like Gretzky/Lemieux/Coffey/Murphy, Oates/Lemieux/Bourque/Coffey (Classic, no CB), or Klima/Recchi, Klima/LaFontaine, Roenick/LaFontaine/Gilmour, Ciccarelli/LaFontaine like in Blitz (where it's 100% real), but I don't, whereas the CB checkers get a vastly improved selection of players. At the end of the day, it is a bug and when you take it out, you see how much easier it becomes to make highly skilled teams (Blitz, GDL11 (although I CB checked)) because the trade-off exists. 

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There is no bending the narrative. Nobody would be drafting Lemieux or Messier if there were no CB check. We already have the comment from Raph in which he selected one of the BEST players available, and implied that it was only because of the CB check. Most don't care about the player skill. They would rather have Gord Hynes and Tom Pedersen than Scott Stevens and Zarley Zalapski. Everyone would laugh at Hokkee for drafting Mark Messier.

In Blitz 09, I drafted Klima, Recchi, Leetch, Sweeney and people told me my team sucked because it didn't have super body checkers on it. There is more to the game than body checking. 

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If you aren't good enough to use fat players without body checking, then that is too bad (in my opinion). There is nothing wrong with Eric Lindros and Jaromir Jagr. If you are also unable to stop JR because you can't body check him, then that is also too bad. It's definitely harder to defeat a skilled CB checking team than it is to be good with skilled fatties or stop a superstar player without the CB check. 

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18 minutes ago, Premium said:

It's definitely harder to defeat a skilled CB checking team than it is to be good with skilled fatties or stop a superstar player without the CB check.   

It's harder to play offence now when CB has been integrated to top level play for some, especially Raph is good using it with fatty skilled wingers. It is true that it's harder to play against classic physics now than it was a couple of years ago. However not too many players seem to be able to do CB that effectively, it doesn't automatically make anyone better. It's also a skill of timing like onetimers etc. It's not too hard when you grasp it, I had some problems with the timing as well, I was changing off too fast (can't do it too slow either), but you don't have do it within 0,2sec on open ice hits.

For the latter - Bure, Gretzky, Roenick, Ciccarelli etc. all have 5+ stickhandling, they dodge around playing them with the stick (b-check). They also have no natural opponent to casual checks on open ice. After playing with CB that just feels too stupid now, for classic physics I don't think there is going back there anymore.

But CBfix for wbfixed leagues just makes sense like smozoma said. It's most likely how the game was "intended", like SNES is.

It's a decision to use pass shots or not, same goes with CB. You try to play to your strenghts.

 

Edited by Depch
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10 minutes ago, Premium said:

It's a disadvantage for those who do not CB check because you cannot have the best of both worlds otherwise.

Without the CB check, you CANNOT build a skilled team of body checkers.

 

Yes it's my choice to NOT CB check, but I draft players based on their skill. Because of this I should get picks like Gretzky/Lemieux/Coffey/Murphy, Oates/Lemieux/Bourque/Coffey (Classic, no CB), or Klima/Recchi, Klima/LaFontaine, Roenick/LaFontaine/Gilmour, Ciccarelli/LaFontaine like in Blitz (where it's 100% real), but I don't,

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There is no bending the narrative. Nobody would be drafting Lemieux or Messier if there were no CB check.

 

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If you aren't good enough to use fat players without body checking, then that is too bad (in my opinion).

To me, I think we are on the same page in this:  It is your choice.

 

I think it does require changing the narrative because you need to make it about something else in order to justify not using the C/B in your play/draft.  Having a skilled team that can check?  I mean, in doing the all time tourney that didn't finish, I saw quite a few teams that did everything.

 

In the end, using C/B at a high level requires having a team full of guys that are FAT and the right mix of light guys to offset it.  Then finding skills on top of that would require enough guys in the league NOT valuing C/B.

 

If everyone in a league valued either agility/awareness like you did, or everyone valued C/B like Raph, or Pass-shots like Ice did, then completing your team in a draft would be more challenging.  For this particular Plabs draft, the C/B was NOT as valued, and with the reduced league size, made for some REALLY strong C/B teams to be formed that say in GDL, would not have been, imo.

 

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Yeah the top guys can all avoid checks, but not everyone gets those players.

Deciding not to use CB check is on me, but there should be a benefit to not using it. Even if the coaches aren't good at the CB check, they are still taking all of the players they wouldn't take otherwise. So whether I use it or not, I'm still disadvantaged in the sense that I don't have as good of a team as I should be using, whereas my opponents are advantaged because they get to use a better team than they should be using. 

 

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1 hour ago, Premium said:

Yeah the top guys can all avoid checks, but not everyone gets those players.

Deciding not to use CB check is on me, but there should be a benefit to not using it. Even if the coaches aren't good at the CB check, they are still taking all of the players they wouldn't take otherwise. So whether I use it or not, I'm still disadvantaged in the sense that I don't have as good of a team as I should be using, whereas my opponents are advantaged because they get to use a better team than they should be using. 

 

I'll concede that it is a MUCH greater advantage than B shots are, and not using it, not being able to use it is a much harder advantage/handicap than any other change to how we play in the game in the past.

This was a MAJOR reason I setup the new league using Blitz rom.  Just felt we needed a break from all the C/B's and C/B talk, etc.

LINK TO NEW LEAGUE SIGNUP for those following along to this thread but struggle with new format of site:

 

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I believe there is an A player inside of me somewhere, and every blue moon has actually reared its head, but for the most part I've always been a B player.  Reasons I think for this is poor manual goalie, lack of patience, controller issues, BUT the biggest thing I think that holds me back, and might be something that I will never be able to get over making me a career B player is something that is rarely talked about on here, and is probably one of the most important things is not having the vision, anticipation (anticipation in general is huge something else I'm poor at which holds me back), and knowing where the off screen players are for both my team, and my opponents, IF you can master that you can compete with the best with average skills everywhere else IMO, but can't compete with the best without even if your an above average player elsewhere.

Anyways that's my .02 I'm sure some disagree with it, but whatever.

Edited by Lupz27
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Oh and FYI when I was at my best it was mostly from practicing the 1 v 1 rom TK made, and trying to emulate, and master his dekes from his Klima GDL 9 playoff goal compilation, and numerous chats on aim with him about it, and advice from him on how to achieve it.

Big shout to TK, maybe if I was more coachable (I am terrible at being coached like worst) I'd probably be an A player.

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3 minutes ago, kingraph said:

Weight bug sucks

C/B check sucks

B-check sucks

Pass shots suck

Goalie delay sucks

Misleading hot/cold ratings suck

Etc.  Easy to make an argument on all of these, it's all how you prefer the game.  

 

Lol, Every single gripe in under 40 words, gotta love the Raph mentality, state the rules, and let's line up, and play so I can kick your ass lol.

Some may say Raph has complained about other things, but I've never heard him complaining about being at a disadvantage because of any rules, hacks ect. Gotta love that.

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38 minutes ago, kingraph said:

Weight bug sucks

C/B check sucks

B-check sucks

Pass shots suck

Goalie delay sucks

Misleading hot/cold ratings suck

Etc.  Easy to make an argument on all of these, it's all how you prefer the game.  

 

If you prefer bad game balance, then sure. But I think the CB check is objectively the worst.

You can prefer living on the streets to a luxury lifestyle, but I wouldn't say it's an easy argument to make.

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What CB essentially brings in is a new look on weight as an attribute. Low weight allows good checking ability and better mobility. High weight allows great checking with the cost of agility (I think weight also affects as a bonus to shotpower, but it's hard to measure, I've just always "felt" that).

What the other attributes are have nothing to do with the feature itself. Whatever thought balance or imbalance is just a viewpoint. CB is essentially about timing, you could make a stupid example that a player that is really horrible at onetimers and great at pass shots says that there is an imbalance on good shooters (shotpower 4+ that allows them from farther) that there is no negative tradeoff to it. So he decides to stick to only pass shots instead. It's a stupid example, but what this essentially is a bout.

What I mean is that I have never even had the concept of thinking of there having to have to be a tradeoff with some attributes.

Edited by Depch
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22 minutes ago, Premium said:

When people have to debate whether or not to draft Cam Neely over Steve Yzerman, or Jimmy Carson over Pat LaFontaine in Blitz, you don't see any tradeoff? 

I don't think it of it as a tradeoff. Sure there are more things to take in to consderation for your need / style in Blitz physics. As for these examples I don't like Neely myself at all, so Stevie Y would be an easy answer and Laffy over Carson if I didn't already have a good player for zone entrance. Carson possibly if I needed a shooter.

In a way CB has closed the gap more with classic and Blitz physics separation. Now heavy players are usable in both. In classic as an addition you could view that the light players are just better checkers than in Blitz and for that in Blitz the heavy players gain even more value compared to star players in Blitz.

Edited by Depch
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Plain and simple:

People would always pass up on skill for body checking. Now that the best players are the best body checkers, the CB check gets the best of both worlds while the non body checkers get worse players.

It doesn't matter if you don't think of it like that. That's clearly what it is. The guys who never used to draft heavy players are doing so now. 

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