Developer Chat

SimLeague Hockey 3.0 is finally here! This new version contains some fundamental engine changes, new salaries, a much improved user interface and more. I'll be happy to address any questions you may have! You can submit your questions early if this time does not work for you.

Wondering how the Def. ratings are determined and how they effect the game. Do they lower opposing shot totals or shot pecentage? (bsb74 - Hall of Famer - 6:05 PM)

Since nobody tracked how many turnovers and player caused or how many takeaways he had, it is hard for us to judge a player's defensive ability that we are not familiar with. Since our game is statistical driven, we had to come up with a way to rate players on defense. We worked with the NHL to come up with a formula that gives each player his defensive. The formula includes looking at the player’s +/-, PIM, the record of the team he played for in real life, the amount of goals against the team he played for in real life, his GP, awards or trophies he may have won for defense, and sometimes the opinion of hockey experts of how good he was on defense. All of those are put into a formula that spits out a number between 1 and 100. They do affect the other team’s shots on goal, but only because they have fewer possessions. A player can always shoot no matter how good the other team’s defense is, but the affect is mainly on the quality of the shot they take.

Mike, are we going to see some improvement to the draft centre? Also, when are we going to see our minor leaguers improve? I believe that since the advent of 3.0 they have been stuck in neutral. (bigbuzz - Hall of Famer - 6:08 PM)

We always have a ton of things going on here! I cannot be certain if I will be needed on other projects, or if I can get approval for more hockey updates in the near future. Either way, when I do get the green light for more, improving the draft center and enhancing dynasty leagues are on the top of my list. As for the minor leaguers -- they do improve with 3.0, this feature has certainly not been removed. I am looking into any problems that could be preventing improvements and I will correct these issues as soon as I track them down.

Hi Mike - great job with Version 3.. My question is in regards to the dynasty leagues.. the players that had short seasons, ie 24/24, 48/48, etc when the salaries are adjusted end up skyrocketing due to not taking in consideration that they are now playing 82 games.. Has that been corrected in Version 3, and if not.. when could it be expected to be fixed? (lenihan - Hall of Famer - 6:12 PM)

Glad to hear you are enjoying version 3.0! The new version uses completely new salary formulas for all players based on their real life stats. These new formulas will also be applied on the stats the players produce in dynasty seasons. These new formulas have been written to correctly evaluate a player’s games played of out the potential games he could have played. So 82 out of 82 is the same as 24 out of 24. This will address the issue of skyrocketing salaries for these players between dynasty seasons. The new formulas will be applied to dynasty leagues early next week!

Another question for you.. everyone has noticed we can't rename team names once submitted.. is this intentional to fall in line with the other sports, or will that be changed back? Doesn' this generate a bunch of unnecessary tickets in the other sports? (lenihan - Hall of Famer - 6:14 PM)

I'm not sure how the absence of this feature relates to the number of tickets support receives, however we would hope you guys would settle on a name before you create your team! ;) But in all seriousness, we do realize there is a need to rename teams in certain situations which is why we added the feature originally. With the new design, it just didn’t fit in naturally anywhere. We do plan to bring the feature back soon, for hockey at least. I really can't speak for the other sports.

My next question is regarding Def of forwards.. I notice the salary of those players with high defense are pretty low (165K for a guy with 72 D rating..).. Are we to assume that high D rating on forwards will have very little meaning on the prevention of shots on goal and goals scored? Does it have fit into the calculation on goalie stamina ? ie.. higher defense, less tiring the goalie gets (lenihan - Hall of Famer - 6:16 PM)

Yes, this is a correct assumption. Your two defenders are the main force behind your team's defensive performance. If you have forwards with high defensive ratings, it will help the overall defensive performance of your team -- just as forwards with low defensive ratings will hurt the team, but the weight of their defensive rating in terms of the defensive performance as a whole is far lighter than the weight of the guys on your pairs.

You should be able to view league leaders in the playoffs (bruno420 - Hall of Famer - 6:18 PM)

Since not all teams make the playoffs and the number of teams in the playoffs is cut in half each round, it wasn't a top priority of ours to spend time developing functionality for league leaders to work during the playoffs. However, most of you are aware that playoffs stats are tracked in the "My Team" window and in each player’s profile. Also, we do listen to all suggestions, so if people feel this is would be important enough to make a priority, we would definitely add it.

Will this new system go and play by the new NHL rules to improve higher and more productive scoring? (dv9player - Prospect - 6:23 PM)

We have received a lot of questions about this. Since our site is primarily about players' past performances, there has been a lot of debate as to whether we should adopt the new rules. I can see us adding a shootout and removing ties sometime soon, but changing the in-game rules is not a priority at this point. When we add the upcoming players and stats for 2005-06, we will probably make a decision one way or the other at that point. We are also tossing around the idea of letting theme league founders choose which rule set to play with, but nothing is definite yet.

With the new 3.0 engine, will leagues utilize the new actual NHL rules to enhance scoring oppurtunities? Or is there anyway the sim will do this? (dv9player - Prospect - 6:29 PM)

See my response to the previous question. However, I would like to point out that one of the major changes in version 3.0 is a new offensive system. Some of the changes made could very well produce more scoring -- especially if the opponent's defense is lacking. Obviously, it will take a few months to see the long term affects of the new offense, but we've made it very easy to tweak this time, so if we need to adjust the balance after a few months of results, we can.

Hi Mike! 3.0 look great so far, but I have to repeat that the ML'ers actually haven't improved at all after 3.0 came out. Gotta be a bug, can you guys please fix this asap? I'm in 3 dynasty leagues using ML'ers a lot and they improved daily until 05/11/04 and now, nothing, zero, zip after 5 days and 10 games all over the place. Please look into it! (rammers - Hall of Famer - 6:35 PM)

Yes, I've looked at the data and it does appear there is a bug somewhere. Now I have my task for this weekend ;) I will try to track it down and fix it ASAP!

When in Coach's office and using the pull down menu to change teams we're automatically sent back to the League office. Is it possible to change this so we "stay" in Coach's office when switching teams? (rammers - Hall of Famer - 6:39 PM)

Other sports with this feature have received similar questions as well. I definitely agree that it would make more sense if it functioned that way, but because of the amount of information each page needs for displaying your team data, it's difficult to switch teams on the fly and return to the same page. Currently, the "League Office" page loads all of that data which is why you are always returned there when you load a new team. We do feel the same way as you on this and we'll put our heads together and try to come up with a solution soon!

hi, i was wondering about the old time goalies and how 3.0 should affect them? i would love to use legends like sawchuck and plante and have them be on par with brodeur and hasek. (noose4 - Hall of Famer - 6:43 PM)

To be honest, the major focus of this release was on offense. But you can't change offense completely without modifying the other factors involved -- defense and goaltending. In 3.0, you will notice that good defense will also help out the goalies when it comes to their save percentage. So draft some good defenders and give some of those legendary goalies a try! You may find yourself pleasantly surprised with the results!

In 3.0 we cant’ see the fantasy players attributes in trade proposal. This is okay on the trading block, but it looks like it’s the Show real life statistics link that is incorrect in trade proposal! Can you look into that as well? (rammers - Hall of Famer - 6:45 PM)

Thanks for the info rammers, I will definately look into this! Glad to see you could make this chat -- what time is it for you right now?

I just noticed that there was a chat half an hour ago. My time is almost 1AM atm. We're 6 hours in front of US EST time here in Norway (CET). (rammers - Hall of Famer - 6:52 PM)

Wow -- this is a true SimLeague Hockey fan here! I can honestly say the hockey game is blessed to have such loyal users! Thanks rammers, and to all of you that have made the community what it has become! I dedicate this new version (minus the little bugs I'm still working on) to all of you :)

Another thing I’m missing in 3.0 is your team players out quick list. I know you can click on the Players out (league) option from every page and that is cool, but if you have a bunch of teams it’s great to spot it right away when checking lines/goalies in Coach’s office. Thanks for the chat :) (rammers - Hall of Famer - 6:59 PM)

Your point is noted rammers. I can understand this need and it is definitely something we'll look at! It was removed to help reduce some of the glutter and confusion in the Coach's Office, but we'll look into finding a new place for it.

Another question we receive a lot: Will version 3.0 normalize Warren Young? (mwelch - Hall of Famer - 7:01 PM)

Fixing glitch players like this was a top priority of the new offense system. For those who missed version 2.0, the performance of forwards weighed almost completely on their shooting percentage. If a guy only played a few games and shot well, he'd shoot well in the sim -- AND if he didn't get hurt, he'd shoot that well the entire season. Now, the new offense system looks at not only shooting percentage, but goals-per-game average and assists to determine how effective a forward will be. Also, salaries are now very in-tune with the way players will perform in the sim, so bargain players like Young no longer exist.

As always, I want to thank you all for your interest in SimLeague Hockey! I also want to thank the beta testers who all did such great jobs. I hope everyone is happy with the new version! If you were unable to participate tonight and still have questions, please feel free to contact customer support.