Genesis Draft League Idea

[chaos]

I know a lot of Gens guys have been wanting another draft league. But, everyone has their different opinions on what they want in the league. I'd like to get a draft league running at least 3 times a year, on a regular schedule. This way, if a guy can't play one season, at least he knows when the next season will be set up and can plan to join that one.

 

I have a couple ideas. I was thinking a weight bug draft league (like GDL) would be good, but with some changes. Please let me know if you like what I am proposing, or some tweaks you would like to see. 

 

 

I'd also like to do a WBF draft league, but not having these running at the same time. I'm not sure alternating is good, or just having a GDL-like league in the fall-winter, and a WBF league in the summer-spring. Or maybe alternating one another would be good.

 

Anyways, my ideas would be relative to both leagues, so here's a list of what I propose:

1. A and B Leagues - One draft pool, but separating players by skill (like Blitz did). The winner of B would automatically go to A league the next year, and the worst team in A would fall back to B league. Or maybe a combination of coaches (i.e. bottom 3, top 3). I would probably limit the amount of coaches to 10-12 a league, 20-24 total. Or, have a single league, split up skill by conference, and have conference play each other 2 games out of the schedule.
2. Draft Trade Committee - Now, in past draft leagues, we have seen unfair trades with veterans raping newbies. I'd like to set up a trade committee of 3 coaches to rule on trades. If you are on the committee and involved in the trade, the other 2 would rule, with commissioner being the tie-breaker if needed. 
3. Penalties ON, but set to 1 minute - I like the balance of this. Change penalties to 1 min. This usually gives the PP team a good 2 chances to score, and not make it too unfair with AI penalties
4. Boosted Goalies - I'd like to take a page from Blitz, and give all goalies other than the top 3 (Belfour, Roy, Fuhr) a boost. Maybe 1 AGL point and 2 points towards their glove and stick attributes.  This helps make more goalies useful, and allows better selections at the top of the draft, with guys not having to worry about picking a crap goalie later on.
5. Advantages Even - I think this is necessary for all draft leagues. PP/PK and Home/Away advantages neutralized.
6. Player Retention (Future) - I'd like to do this, maybe carry 1 or 2 players over from your roster the season before. But I haven't thought of the perfect way yet. This probably wouldn't be implemented for the first few seasons. I was thinking something similar to how Salary Cap was done. Assign money values and allow you to keep a number of players below your salary cap. Also, put a limit on how many seasons you can keep a player.

 

Anyway, any opinions are welcome. I'd like to start the league up before December or early December. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Scribe99]

I like all of your ideas Chaos. I'd be fine without boosted goalies. I guess I feel like at the top level players have enough defensive skill and polished goalie control to make up for the low ratings. 

[sheehy]

I agree with Scribe99...all of those ideas sound great. Just itching to get finally get on the digital ice! Any chance to play will be welcomed. Thanks for getting the ball rolling!

[hokkeefan]

That all sounds good !

thing I would add atm is to have no tolerance for slackers, try to keep a good flow going, it keeps it interesting .

P.s

Remember... trading is one of the great things about draft lgs but also can't get carried away like thee ol' days hahaha. 

7 unlimited trades ? Cause people always use a few on the draft and then 3 to 5 after.

You da man Chaos 

[corbettkb]

13 minutes ago, Scribe99 said:

I like all of your ideas Chaos. I'd be fine without boosted goalies. I guess I feel like at the top level players have enough defensive skill and polished goalie control to make up for the low ratings. 

I think boosted goalies actually help everyone else more than the top people, imo.  (fuhr should prob get a little boost too).

[corbettkb]

10 minutes ago, hokkeefan said:

That all sounds good !

thing I would add atm is to have no tolerance for slackers, try to keep a good flow going, it keeps it interesting .

P.s

Remember... trading is one of the great things about draft lgs but also can't get carried away like thee ol' days hahaha. 

7 unlimited trades ? Cause people always use a few on the draft and then 3 to 5 after.

You da man Chaos 

yea just putting a trade cap may be an easier way to go with this, skips 3 trade limit per owner seemed to work well.

[hokkeefan]

No to the 3 trade, that's fricken lame, might as well have none and take the fun out of it!!!

I'd agree with goalie boosts cause I suck at manual lol

 

[dcicon5148]

Looks amazing, I’m in!

[Uncle Seth]

-Ditch penalties completely, they're in every other league we have not having them is (or at least was) a major hit, no pun intended)

-Ditch hot/cold completely, they're in every other league we have.  Static ratings = consistent performance.

-Yes, 1 min penalties are better than 2 min penalties.  But even with 1 min pims, you still (if you care about having your best players on the ice for the PK) often have to make a line change at the beginning and also when the penalty expires. 

-Basically this rom is already made, Plablegs, as it has everything you mentioned (minus pims) and plus adds static consistency. 

-Yes, love the idea of A & B but it has to be based on ability, not preference (ahem dickon).

-Keep it simple by not having salary cap stuff or player retention. 

-As for trades, assign a knowledgeable veteran (even better if he isn't in the league) to make the call on questionable trade offers with ability to reject, regardless of who the coach is.  In other words, guys like Lupz can't build an all-star team simply because everyone knows he's not a threat (so they allow rape-job-trades).

- Lastly, weight bug fix is for SNES geeks who want to make it more like SNES.  Sega is and always will be defined by the weight bug.

PS, don't start the league when classic is running.  And starting it right now would also not be optimal with holiday season right around the corner.  Guys leave town, get too busy etc.  Leads to delays in games and seriesseseses being played. 

[hokkeefan]

No one should be going anywhere for Christmas!

Stay the hell home!

I agree with the no player retention stuff, fresh start every season.

[chaos]

Yeah the boosted goalies is more for the B players to help them out. Top guys usually don’t care about goalie. Boosted goalies can make another 10-15 goalies or so after the top 3 useful. 

Also, forgot to mention hot/cold. I like the idea of hot/cold, it makes it a little more realistic. Some guys being hot can make a lineup they normally wouldn’t. Hot/cold display should be accurate though. I think there is a way to control the wild swings though. Maybe small boosts/nerfs?

player retention just an idea I was thinking about when I wanted to start Blitz up again. But that could be for another league. I’m fine with not doing that. 

also agree with thinking best guy to rule on trades would be someone not in the league  

@Uncle Seth good point, maybe start the league after New Years. Holidays get too busy. 
 

 

[hokkeefan]

You could still start this up in December , could do the draft , all the trading, setting up rules n rosters n lines,create ROM.

Then let us exhi out and have fun then have the official league start January 3rd.

The initial beginning stuff will take a couple weeks anyways and then people can finish up playing classic  

Waiting another 2 months to even start the process is kind of silly , I could be dead by then of old age lol

Edited November 1, 2020 by hokkeefan

[chaos]

44 minutes ago, hokkeefan said:

You could still start this up in December , could do the draft , all the trading, setting up rules n rosters n lines,create ROM.

Then let us exhi out and have fun then have the official league start January 3rd.

The initial beginning stuff will take a couple weeks anyways and then people can finish up playing classic  

Waiting another 2 months to even start the process is kind of silly , I could be dead by then of old age lol

Yeah this is a good idea. Maybe start draft mid-late December

[hokkeefan]

Early mid 

[Premium]

what about six seasons a year:

 

one month each for regular season and playoffs

 

draft for next season during playoffs of current season

 

as soon as a season ends, next season starts right away 

———

maybe have a circuit:

draft league 1 (Jan-Feb)

draft league 2 (Mar-Apr)

spring classic (May-Jun)

draft league 3 (Jul-Aug)

draft league 4 (Sep-Oct)

fall classic (Nov-Dec)

Edited November 1, 2020 by Premium

[kidswasted]

I’d be down if you had the additional B league. 

[niuhuskie224]

On 10/31/2020 at 8:10 PM, chaos said:

1. Player Retention (Future) - I'd like to do this, maybe carry 1 or 2 players over from your roster the season before. But I haven't thought of the perfect way yet. This probably wouldn't be implemented for the first few seasons. I was thinking something similar to how Salary Cap was done. Assign money values and allow you to keep a number of players below your salary cap. Also, put a limit on how many seasons you can keep a player.

 

So this idea I like.  We could borrow an idea from fantasy sports where you get to keep players after a certain round in the draft.  So if a team was 7 F's, 4 D's and 2 Goalies (Don't know why you would need that many but whatever it is), the first 3 rounds could be non keepers, while rounds 4 through 12 could be kept.  Then when you draft for the next season if you kept a 4th rounder you would give up a 3rd.  5th would be a 4th.  Etc.

Also, I like keeping the home ice advantage.  It gives a "bonus" for having a higher seed in the playoffs.  Maybe even if it was a playoffs only thing?

[jackandjose]

I might have to come back for this.

[hokkeefan]

Do it!!!

 

[Scribe99]

On 11/3/2020 at 1:04 PM, niuhuskie224 said:

So this idea I like.  We could borrow an idea from fantasy sports where you get to keep players after a certain round in the draft.  So if a team was 7 F's, 4 D's and 2 Goalies (Don't know why you would need that many but whatever it is), the first 3 rounds could be non keepers, while rounds 4 through 12 could be kept.  Then when you draft for the next season if you kept a 4th rounder you would give up a 3rd.  5th would be a 4th.  Etc.

Also, I like keeping the home ice advantage.  It gives a "bonus" for having a higher seed in the playoffs.  Maybe even if it was a playoffs only thing?

I agree. Why not give every team the same home ice advantage to keep it even and to make hom ice mean something?

[Sebe_The_Legend]

On 10/31/2020 at 10:18 PM, Uncle Seth said:

-Ditch penalties completely, they're in every other league we have not having them is (or at least was) a major hit, no pun intended)

-Ditch hot/cold completely, they're in every other league we have.  Static ratings = consistent performance.

-Yes, 1 min penalties are better than 2 min penalties.  But even with 1 min pims, you still (if you care about having your best players on the ice for the PK) often have to make a line change at the beginning and also when the penalty expires. 

-Basically this rom is already made, Plablegs, as it has everything you mentioned (minus pims) and plus adds static consistency. 

-Yes, love the idea of A & B but it has to be based on ability, not preference (ahem dickon).

-Keep it simple by not having salary cap stuff or player retention. 

-As for trades, assign a knowledgeable veteran (even better if he isn't in the league) to make the call on questionable trade offers with ability to reject, regardless of who the coach is.  In other words, guys like Lupz can't build an all-star team simply because everyone knows he's not a threat (so they allow rape-job-trades).

- Lastly, weight bug fix is for SNES geeks who want to make it more like SNES.  Sega is and always will be defined by the weight bug.

PS, don't start the league when classic is running.  And starting it right now would also not be optimal with holiday season right around the corner.  Guys leave town, get too busy etc.  Leads to delays in games and seriesseseses being played. 

I agree with this whole post. My sentiments exactly. I would come back and play in a draft league. I know a lot of other old vets would come back too. When is this league happening? Let's do this! 

[hokkeefan]

Update!?

 

[Uncle Seth]

On 12/17/2020 at 6:00 AM, Sebe_The_Legend said:

I agree with this whole post. My sentiments exactly. I would come back and play in a draft league. I know a lot of other old vets would come back too. When is this league happening? Let's do this! 

Sebe gets it. This type of league that has prestige (and history) is so much more fun than classic.  It brings people out from the shadows, like chum for sharks.  And I know some are thinking "but we have draft style leagues going and blah blah".  True, but not a gold-standard, serious league like GDL was; the biggest prize in all of 94 land and anyone who was around when it was, knows this is true.  The level of play can even be argued to be a tad higher because people make an entire team of players with skills that they are their best with.  For example, Raph when he drafts Scott Stevens and Iafrate together as a D pair, and someone like Gartner up front, it's frightening.  Give Habs a team with Tikkanen, Makarov, Housley, you'll see him at his best too. 

The one issue that kind of plagued GDL was that with 24 coaches, it became extremely top heavy in terms of talent (as there was no A, B, C etc).  A lot of people don't want to admit it, but most top guys don't want to crush lower guys, it's a predictable outcome and waste of time for both parties.  Not fun to get destroyed by someone way above your own level or be the one committing the massacre on the lower guy.  In addition to the non-fun factor of leagues with so much variance in ability, it doesn't help the lower guy get any better if they are too far in over their head.  So the easy fix is to just have 1 draft, but 2 levels (and B).  But A's play each other and B's play each other, none of this inter-level play.  Each compete for their own championship. 

Of course there is the decisions about the details of the rom.  I (and many who aren't active these days to verify this) believe Plabax made some tweaks that perfected a rom like GDL (it was called Plablegs but can be renamed to something more normal sounding lol).  Like I said a couple paragraphs above....  Imagine playing Raph with his D core of Stevens and Iafrate.  Now imagine penalties are off.  No downside to having those aggressive, checking monsters.  Quicker access to GC was also added, making it a little harder to score.  It's big-boy hockey (one of my favorite phrases by the way).  Don't get me started on how great it is not to have hot/cold.  Or if it is included, how nice it is to be able to SEE accurately who's hot and who's cold (or avg). 

There's also a sense of pride when you create/draft your entire team.  The downside (for some) is there are not many available excuses when you lose.  Can't blame the ref, hot/cold, home advantage, bad team AI etc.  YOU MADE THIS TEAM, OWN IT.  I remember when I drafted Garter with my first pick.  I was so excited.  But I never drafted any other fast players to keep up with him.  I ended up hating having him out there because he was always too ahead of the play for my liking.  But it was my fault and lesson learned.  There were also times I drafted a team of clone fwds with average skills but nothing extraordinary in terms of passing, stickhandling, speed or agility.  I thought I was doing good w/them until I ran into Plabax.  He not only showed me, but told me something like, "you're not going to beat me if you can't get a step on my D, you need to have at least 1 fast fwd".  Another time (might have even been the same team) I discovered how important awareness ratings are.  I had a bunch of good shooters and passers but all had average awareness ratings.  As a consequence, they weren't in the spots I needed them to be in, when I needed them there.  I'd be talking to my monitor, "anyone want to go to the slot, want to grab that loose puck sitting in front of you".  Awareness matters. 

So in summation after this sloppy, long-winded post, this type of league makes you a better player because you learn firsthand what works for you and what doesn't, who other coaches do really with, ratings details that make differences on the ice etc. 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Uncle Seth

[chaos]

Yes, I forgot to mention hot/cold. I think hot/cold adds a more realistic element to the game. Obviously if it was in the ROM, it would be set to display properly. But if enough people who are interested in the league don't want hot/cold, I'm fine with taking it out.

As far as penalties, I would prefer to keep it 1 min, but again if enough people are against it, we can take it out. One thing I don't like about no penalties is the C-check whores go nuts. Not only that, but when you get an injured player, you get screwed and theres no repercussions for the other team. If there was a way to shut injuries off, or make it so only injuries results in a penalty, I would be fine with that. But we can put it to vote. 

I'll start a poll for hot/cold and penalties. I understand your points @Uncle Seth, and I'd like to see what others think.

As far as starting this league up and drafting, I'd like to do it very soon, right after new years. Maybe start the signup within the next week.

 

 

[Mr. T]

2 hours ago, Uncle Seth said:

doesn't

I’m in this league sounds amazing.  Mr. T ex

[Uncle Seth]

2 hours ago, chaos said:

One thing I don't like about no penalties is the C-check whores go nuts. Not only that, but when you get an injured player, you get screwed and theres no repercussions for the other team. If there was a way to shut injuries off, or make it so only injuries results in a penalty, I would be fine with that. But we can put it to vote. 

 

 

 

 

There's still downsides to trying to check everyone with C or CB, you miss and you take yourself out of position.  If you the move the puck right before you get hit, no harm done and more ice opens up.  Plus C check whores aren't a problem for anyone IMO.  

PS, I've always felt making great big hits should be rewarded not punished, so all this time big hitters have been screwed IMO.   Imagine Tikkanen playing the entire time instead of being in the box 8 minutes of a 15 minute game.

A vote is fine.  I'll just have to ballot harvest from all the pro-checking coaches lol.  

Lastly, I like to phrase hot/cold as... "do you like consistent performance (that match the rating you look at when you're drafting) from your players or do you like randomly generated wild swings in performance".  

I personally feel hot/cold effects are excessive in 94, unrealistically so.  If hot & cold were based on say previous game performance that carried over or in-game performance (like NBA jam for example) where you get hot after hitting consecutive shot, then it would be realistic.   But Patrick Laine doesn't have a rocket wrister one game & weak the next.   Johnny hockey isn't super agile one day & the following night loses a lot of agility.  Kane doesn't stickhandle through heavy traffic one game then the next game lose that ability.  McDavid doesn't blow past everyone on Monday night but Wednesday be fast but not overly fast.  I think you get my drift.  The swings are too pronounced in 94.   We already have the momentum factor & user/coach based variability.  No need for Ron Barr to hijack it all lol.

However, if keeping it in the game wins the vote, it's definitely better to know who's hot with ratings on the screen matching on-ice performance.  After all, real life coaches always play the hot hand and are be able to witness who is playing like s**t.  I know AJ for example likes more randomness (like hot/cold, pims) and that's his preference, but we have that in all the other leagues.  Removing more randomness means user ability & performance has a bigger role in the outcome (than refs or Ron Barr).  Also, if hot/cold wins the vote, having a bigger roster is better so you can bench the cold and play the hot or average.  A benefit of static (no hot cold) means you can have a shorter draft/less rounds.  

Also Chaos, Plabax's rom neutralized home/away advantages (again, to take more randomness out of the game).  

PS, I bet Habs would join too if Sebe did.  And I'd do my best to convince Icestorm to come back from retirement.  He'd be tempted by a serious draft league, especially if I call him out publicly .  The thought of having a Phousse & Hogue duo would be too hard to resist for him.  I have another trick up my sleeve if he doesn't join right away.  I could threaten to show up at his door (he's like 15-20 min from me), with clown gear on if he doesn't.   

 

Last but not least, with pims OFF, I rarely change lines.  With pims on, I change often.  Just trying to sweeten the pot!

 

OK one more thing before Dickon chimes in.  Weight bug must stay in the game.  Go play SNES if you want your weight bug fix fix.  

Edited December 19, 2020 by Uncle Seth

[chaos]

Yeah home/away advantage will be neutral thats a definite. You can't have that in a draft league.

Though I'd like to add a slight home advantage in the playoff rom. Maybe just one point, to make home ice advantage a little meaningful. Someone had mentioned this on Discord, and I liked the idea. 

Maybe vote for this at a later time.

As far as the hot/cold, I agree there is a big swing. There may be a hack to tone it down, I will look into it (I think the SmozROM hack does this?)

Weight bug is in for this one.

Yes there will be A and B leagues, with one draft.

 

I'll use the poll to decide on hot/cold and PIMs.

 

 

 

[Uncle Seth]

What about draft order.  Random or based on ability?  I think if some high A coach randomly ends up with 1st pick & gets JR,  makes things very tough for everyone else.  You know me, always against the luck factor, so I think random draft order is garbage.  People can always trade if there are players they really want.  FPB used to give up his picks in round 2-8 to get that 1st pick JR.  We all know Roenick is worth his weight in gold.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Uncle Seth

[smozoma]

couple notes:

Using EARE, you actually can't completely eliminate home advantage. There's still a slight advantage for some reason (see the 0/0 teams in the table): https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/17660-homeaway-advantages-analysis/

smozROM can only eliminate hot/cold, there isn't a tone-it-down option. IIRC hot/cold ranges from -0.6 to +0.4 on the 0-6 scale. (On SNES it seems like +/-2 or something wild). One thing that always worried me about using the "show true ratings" hack was that you'd have some unscrupulous people who would fake a desynch if they saw Roenick was cold at the start of the game. So I think it's best to either remove hot/cold or leave it like normal where you have to FEEL if a guys is hot or cold.

[corbettkb]

Love it all. THX.  Yes to reduced one min penalties, gotta still have the breakway whistle.  DAL dibs.

Edited December 19, 2020 by corbettkb