mediocrepony

@qripll

@qripll

Hello everyone,
 
An anonymous member in a position of power has agreed to give me certain privilege's / powers to help us celebrate the greatest day in the world. If anyone has any suggestions for a great April Fools day prank either on forum or discord, please either pm me on here or message me on discord. Thank you for supporting the cause

This is the last season we will ever have the usual builds. From next season on we should expect some VHLE tier builds...or something slightly better than that if you have lots of TPE. It will be very interesting to see who can adjust better and faster to this new era. That relates to both parties, players and GM's. I feel like VHLM is going to be a crapshoot. Every team that has couple 100 TPE players at least should be considered as the contender from that moment on. Anyways, let's go back to VHL because I'm managing one of their teams. Yesterday I was wondering if this change came a season earlier. My theory is that high TPE players will matter since they have a better chance to make a decent build (like some early 90's and things). Who knows if this is true cause STHS is still random as hell. But let's just go off that and see what's up.
 
 

 
If my theory would be right, Calgary might end up as the most unlucky team here. For so many seasons they hoarded high end talent TPE wise, but their forward chemistry was rather uninspiring. With this change, I see them being one of NA's powerhouse as they have dozens of high TPE guys all over place. They don't have a 4th defenseman, but I'd assume that wouldn't be a hell of a problem. Now that I'm hearing rumors that Ricer is contemplating to sell following this season....maybe one more try? At the end of the day, feels like Calgary was ahead of their time which certainly isn't the best scenario for the only team from Alberta. It isn't NHL, you know.
 

 
Nothing changes here. Still a huge bottom feeder. Sunrise is the only one with something better than VHLM level, but it's obviously not enough. Not that Jeff would care in this case either. The only thing is, we won't see Creed-esque seasons with 450 shot blocks per season all the time anymore.
 

 
They do have more players, but with this change these sub 400 TPE players would matter less so I don't see them being much better than Chicago. Maybe not better at all. Vidot is the only halfway decent player, but it doesn't saves them from an ugly record.
 

 
They had Tessier and Unguri at the start of the season. Add Tavau to this and we have have a fairly ok team. Nothing extraordinary, but still with a shot at the playoffs. But as we are still in the usual meta build era, they decided to sell former two and they're only left with Ahma as the only decent option. Better team than DC and Chicago, but certainly not a playoff team.
 

 
Actually, there is no real change comparing to the current times. Before the trade they were a team with a decent offensive potential with a great goaltending that was getting overshadowed by a huge weakness at defense. Only change is the hole at defense would be even bigger. Now that Johnston is gone, this team is somewhat alright with a shot at the wildcard. That would be their ceiling.
 
 

 
Now this is an interesting one. London is a team that is relying a lot on the popular low pass buildup to emerge as the top gun of Europe. However, with this change they are suddenly becoming rather mediocre. The most of roster is emerging, but I don't feel they would be quite there yet. Fizzlebeef is the only interesting peace there imo. Maybe there is still a way to be a big shot due to no glaring weakness (maybe outside of the goaltending maybe), but I'm just not feeling them. Probably the 6th team in Europe.
 

 
I think they wouldn't lose much from this buildup change. They do have couple of high TPE players that would be enough to keep LA at the top or somewhere around it. They had a weakness at defensive depth before this trade deadline. And while DeGrooth isn't exactly the savior, a player is still better than bot. Surefire TOP 3 in NA in my opinion.
 

 
A team that probably had a better chance to make a noise in regular season with new changes. Most of high TPE players are actually struggling now, but the new change would turn this into the parallel universe. High TPE players are producing, lower ones are being fairly decent, but not leading force. Minion has to enjoy this season while it lasts, cause there is a chance he will never have anything like that anymore. As for the team with this change - lurking around with the chance at the ultimate glory.
 

 
This team is fighting for the last wildcard spot...what the fuck??? With this change or without it, they should've been way bigger than that, but here we are. In the new era I think Moscow is one of the biggest favorites to win it all. Just look at the high end talent they have now. The depth is kinda eh, but I think it won't matter a lot there. They will just destroy most of teams by their superstars alone. Surefire league's TOP 3 at least.
 

 
Just like Chicago and DC, there is no change. Still a 6th NA team. Welch is surely a good player, but anything else is very average to bottom liner tier guys. Maybe they offense the very slightly better than DC has. Hence they are still sixth.
 

 
I was curious to see how is this roster going to play out as they had a high passing setup for the most part. 68 games later, they are enjoying one of the best season in their franchise history. You know what could've been better for them? This hybrid change. Like, they don't have any very elite talent (outside of Reinhart), but lots of very solid guys would keep them at the similar place they have right now. I think they'd be the biggest threat for Moscow in the EU conference.
 

 
I feel like in pre-Johnston times we would've been a decent team with the lack of superstar forward lineup. Miklavz could've been actually a star there with DaMoose and Tallinder being somewhat close to good. Adding Johnston puts this team closer to the EU top although there is a question whether Reinhart would hold it in the net. Still, I see Riga being in same tier as Malmo - slightly lower than Moscow and Prague, but capable of beating both of them.
 

 
Before this season I was thinking their power triangle Jubis-Lose-Gus would bail out this team from mediocricy. Well, Gus is about to win the MVP. The other two have been good, but not exceptional. Well, with this change...things would change for this team a bit. For the better. First off, this all of this power tringle would be real game changer. But also Detroit and Petrenko would matter more as well. Plus they added Berocka's goalie. Looks like a strong candidate for the championship, unlike now.
 

 
A team that wouldn't have changed their position in either scenario. Peace and Matty are still their main meal ticket, but a defense would be worse so I'm seeing them having a really mediocre record. Still enough for the 5th place, but no real chances at surprising the world as they did last season.
 

 
Well, Cow's Reinhart would still be good. Also great goaltending. Other than that, couple of players that are emerging as future superstars and a bit questionable forward depth. A fairly solid team, but certainly not as dominant as they have been for the past 2.5 seasons for now. I guess...meta is indeed done. This is their last chance to have such domiance and three peat as well. Not getting it would suck for them big time.
 

 
You know which team has also the last chance to do something useful? Look at this team. For the past three seasons they managed to be in the playoff race while not even trying hard for that. Their roster has always been meh on paper, but the heavy scoring based roster was able to capitilize on this meta timeline. However, with this change they are moving towards medicore teritorry. Trunov is the man here and couple of rising souls at offense. Other than that, nothing that could elevate this team from being mid. Not even Chicken Wing, I'd assume. This season is truly the last chance for them.
 
 
Alright now, the article is about to be done as I want to eat and 3 weeks of 6 TPE is enough I think. I'm not sure how is the league going to shape up after this change, to be honest. My theory is just a theory, but STHS still remains random so for real, who knows. I'm just hoping Riga can move into this era without much problems and be one of top dogs in the league as the we were supposed to be after the S75 draft.
 
That's it and I'm out.
 
claiming for 3 weeks

@adison

@adison

Needed a vhl.com for the week, what better topic to cover than the recent rollout of hybrid attributes from a BoG lens?
 
- We were fairly certain from the start that we didn't want archetypes. One archetype would end up becoming meta, or we would be limiting people from building the way they choose. I think there was proposals in public of a seesaw balance between SC and PA/DF, which would mean that if you wanted 99 SC you'd sacrifice all your DF or something along those lines. We knew that it would demolish the effectiveness of players who wanted high SC, so we scrapped that idea fairly quickly.
 
- Increasing the update scale was also proposed, specifically at the higher end. We didn't want to go the EFL/SBA route where you have to bank for a week or two just to increase an attribute point by 1. That's mainly caused by an overreliance on a single attribute, and we just didn't want to make people sit and wait to increase attributes. We also recognized the meta build of 40/99/99 would still exist, probably in a more severe form if we increased the update scale. It'd be more costly and require more TPE, but it could still exist on a single line which defeated the purpose a bit - therefore we wanted to eliminate it's possibility entirely.
 
- Overall it was a lot of work and lot of credit goes to Bek for mainly spearheading the need for change and then Eno for the specifics of it.

Hybrid Attributes: Ending the Meta
 
Hello @Members!
 
As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, the VHL has a meta problem. If you aren’t aware…. where have you been? I’ll explain though: at its core, the “meta” in the VHL refers to building a player with max Scoring (as well as ideally max Defense) and absolutely no Passing, or as little Passing as you can possibly manage. This tricks the engine into taking an insane amount of shots rather than passing and more shots means more goals. An individual player doing this has minimal impact on the engine as a whole but an entire team doing it is not only salary efficient (since not much TPE is needed), but can also be very beneficial to that team as they outshoot and outscore their opponents rather consistently. As more and more users have started to discover this, more and more teams have come to adopt this “meta” strategy, intentionally or otherwise.
 
The SHL discovered this a few years ago and completely changed engines to eliminate it. Before I get into our fix I want to explain something to eliminate a misconception: we did know about this and we weren’t just ignoring it in hopes that it wouldn’t be a problem. At the time it was discovered, we ran tests and found the impact to be lesser with our engine version and roster composition. It was present but not extreme - combined with re-rolls being much harder to acquire here, we thought it best not to rock the boat believing changes would be more detrimental to league health than the problem which, at that point, had not really come up in the VHL.
 
Unfortunately times changed and as we know, the meta has been on our doorstep for a bit now. That is why the @BOG has been working very hard the last few seasons to come up with a solution that would not only eliminate the meta without changing engines (something that would be nuclear to the portal and unwanted if it can be avoided) but also improve build diversity, roster makeup, and hopefully league enjoyment.
 
Therefore, I present your new VHL Player Attributes:
 
 
"But Beketov..." I hear you asking, "if we aren't changing engines and we can't change the attributes inside of STHS how do we have new attributes?"
 
Good question theoretical member! The short answer is: we don't. The above are the attributes you as members will be seeing but they are not the attributes STHS will be seeing. We are calling these hybrid attributes and their job is to give us more control over builds without directly limiting what can and can't be added to. They work by spreading out the TPE placed into them into different STHS attributes at different ratios. Specifically the ratios that are used are:
 
 
I know that looks like a lot of numbers and attributes but I promise it's not as complicated as it seems at first glance.
 
Essentially 1 point into a Hybrid attribute = a ratio of 1 or more STHS attributes. For example adding 1 point to Offensive Vision will add 0.3 points to PA and 0.3 points to SC (this sounds quite low but I promise it works out). To make it so that this doesn't completely break how much TPE is needed for a build all values will be rounded down (since STHS cannot accept decimals) but the points aren't lost, they simply aren't used until you hit a new whole number. I also want to assure you that these values were not randomly determined - they were the byproduct of many test sims to ensure they would mitigate all of the issues we were aiming to address.
 
These values can be more easily tweaked over time if a new meta develops and give us granular control over the STHS attributes in a way that simply having an update scale never has and never could. In the specific case of the meta, the eagle eyed among you have probably already noticed that there’s no way to achieve max scoring without adding to passing. In fact if you max all the scoring attributes you will end up around 64 passing by association. This was the crux of the meta fix, build attributes together in a way that making a purely “meta” player is impossible.
 
The additional bonus of course is build diversity, or at least that's the hope. I'm hitting this explanation over the head a bit and I promise I'll stop soon but I wanted to touch on this very quickly because I can see the comments now from that theoretical member again, "couldn't we have achieved the same thing by adding archetypes or simply a required gap between passing and scoring?" Yes, theoretical member, we could have. However we chose to take longer to make this than go one of those routes because the VHL's attributes have always been based around adding what you want, where you want. We do not have limits on specific attributes or requirements like gap; it would be easier but that doesn't inherently make it better. @Beaviss originally came up with an early version of this a few years back (so credit to him) and I shot it down because I didn't think it made sense at the time. However when looking at all of this again it seemed to fit perfectly. Fix the meta and add a whole new world of build theorycrafting. We don't have any new actual attributes but having different ways to get things up and having to balance certain trade offs inherently creates more opportunity to diversify. You can try this out for yourselves since @Spartan ohas graciously simplified our testing spreadsheet here (originally designed by @Enorama, credit where due because I certainly couldn't do all that math) which you can use to start designing your build right now before this all comes into play.
 
--- 
 
Which leads me out of the meat of this announcement and into the nitty gritty details: Implementation and what it all means.
 
First off, this is going into effect for the start of S83 which will likely mean extending the off-season slightly because we need to accommodate the fact that every skater in the league will be re-rolled down to TPA + banked after depreciation is run, which will happen early. This is done so that you can re-apply your TPE into the new attributes as you please. You can choose to change your build if you'd like or you can try and build exactly the same, the choice is ultimately yours. Inactive players will be re-rolled by their GM's and any players not re-rolled by the start of the season will be retired.
 
We recognize this is a large change though and builds may not be perfectly finalized even with the extra tools and preparation time. For that reason we will be offering a 3 season window (ending at the start of S86) in which you will be able to re-roll your player again for free. Everyone will be able to do this once regardless of if they have previously used the paid re-roll or not.
 
We do also recognize that this is a WC off-season as well as the other usual off season tournaments and those will not be affected. We will download a ratings file for them the last day before everyone is reset and run the tournaments off of that file. You may have noticed by now that none of those attributes above and nothing I have said thus far relates to goalies; that is because goalies shall remain untouched for now. They will not be re-rolled or affected in any way at this time. If changes to their attributes need to be made in the future we shall do so but for now we want to gather data without adjusting them.
 
The update scale and depreciation will also remain unchanged, again at least for now. From our testing depreciation should be roughly the same difficulty to fight as before for the higher TPE players and should be slightly easier for the lower TPE players. Additionally the update scale does not appear to require changing and will operate in exactly the same way as before with 1 caveat: attributes will start at 0 and go to 99 instead of the 40-99 that the VHL has ran with for 82 seasons. This only applies to the hybrid attributes with the ones inside STHS still having a baseline of 40. The update scale for 0-70 will remain at 1 TPE per point. The process of updating will also remain unchanged however it will look slightly different. We will be upgrading the update page to showcase not only which points go into your hybrid attributes but also the effect of your STHS attributes. It is worth noting, however, that there will be disheartening moments in this system on occasion. Because of how the ratios work and the rounding down there will be times where you add a point and see nothing change. Again I would like to clarify that every point added does get counted, it may just not be enough to push you over the rounding threshold. The TPE tool shall also be adjusted accordingly to help people figure out their builds and see exactly what adding to everything does. It will work the same as the above link but be a lot less manual.
 
I recognize this is a long explanation, a lot of words, and a lot to take in. It is not a decision we made lightly but it is a decision we are excited about. It should hopefully fix a lot of player attribute problems we have been facing in one move and allow the league to grow without destroying everything we have built with STHS. This will allow our attributes to be closer to the expectation of the engine without suppressing the creativity to do as you please, it will put an end to the meta build, it will make for an increase in build diversity, and it will allow the VHL to continue to thrive. Please know that we will be keeping an eye on things over the next few seasons as, regardless of the amount of testing we did, ultimately the biggest test is getting it in all of your hands. If we need to adjust sliders or change goalies or anything else we will do so. We ask that you all embrace this change and help to make the league better.
 
If you have any further questions, points of clarification, or concerns, please reach out to a Commissioner or a BoG member. We'd be happy to explain details to prevent incorrect information from circulating.
 
- @Commissioner

I've been trying to write a .com piece for a couple of days. I keep looking at the empty page, mindlessly scanning stats on the App, clicking through subforums. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the attempted criminalization of being a parent of a trans child in Texas, the subversion of democracy in the US, it's impossible to care about the trivialities of fake hockey. Even trying to write this piece, I stopped after the second sentence and looked at news from and about Ukraine. Whether it's President Zelensky affirming to his citizens that he is there on the front lines to defend the nation that he loves, or the Eiffel Tower being illuminated in yellow and blue, or stories of the Ghost of Kyiv, I can barely see through the tears that are welling in my eyes. I don't know if this will count for 2 TPE, and at this point, I really don't care, but for anyone reading this, I encourage you to be an active participant in politics - local, state, provincial, national, whatever: VOTE. Even if people are trying to stop you from doing it, VOTE. Voter suppression happens BECAUSE your vote has power. Elections have consequences. 

You can't be contained.

The VHLM season is marching ever closer to the end of the regular season. The Mexico City Kings, home to the player I've been embedded with for the six months, Ryuji Sakamoto, sit comfortably in third place in the Western Conference with 71 points. The Kings are trailing the Saskatoon Wild and the Houston Bulls, who are in a neck and neck battle for conference supremacy, tied at 85 points. The league-leading Philadelphia Reapers sit a single point ahead at 86.
 
               For his part, Sakamoto sits just outside the top 10 in assists, and 7th in defensive scoring. His bread and butter this year, shot blocking and hitting, both see him still ranked at the top of the league, with a gap of 49 blocked shots and 20 hits. Along with that, he's 5th in penalty minutes, a rather dubious leaderboard, and one of only six players to be above to 100 penalty minute mark.
 
               One thing that has been bothering Sakamoto lately, however, is his timing. His torrid shot blocking pace has slowed considerably, and with 15 games remaining in the Kings' schedule, there's some doubt as to whether or not he is able to set a new VHLM record for most blocked shots in a season. The current record is 263, which means that Sakamoto would need to resume the pace of five blocks per game, a pace that he was on for the first half of the year.
 
               "Do you think that maybe you're trying too hard?" I ask Sakamoto, who slouches his way out of the locker room after a particularly grueling practice session. "Not to mention the fact that teams are aware of your shot blocking skills and intentionally pass around you when you're in the shot lane."
 
               Sakamoto sighs. "You sound like my coach," he grumbles, popping open a can of carbonated grape-flavored soda. He offers me the first sip in a charming if wholly disgusting gesture, waits for me to decline, then downs the entire thing in about ten seconds.
 
               "Maybe your coach has a point," I say gently.
 
               Sakamoto sighs again. I don't know if you know anyone like this, but the young Japanese defender can communicate dozens of different thoughts and emotions through his varied sighs. I have no doubt that it is a byproduct of extensive practice. His first sigh said, "You don't have to lecture me. I know what you're saying, I hear and understand your words, but I don't want to deal with it right now." The second sigh said, "I hate taking advice from adults." I'm not sure if he means me or his coach, but it doesn't matter. I'm very curious what Sakamoto will be like when he grows into adulthood himself. In the past few months, he's let slip a few comments about a friend back home, Ann Takamaki, whom he clearly has a huge crush on, but he shut up like a clamshell as soon as he realized what he had said. Idly, I wonder if it would be possible to meet Ms. Takamaki myself, and get some insight into what the rough, blond-haired youth went through back in Japan.
 
               "C'mon, man," Sakamoto says impatiently, breaking me from my reverie. "I wanna go play Gun About."
 

 

@der meister

Also, if anyone who buys it would be kind enough to leave a review, that would be very much appreciated. 

I can't possibly think those who submitted covers enough. I was absolutely blown away that four of you were willing to do this, especially on such short notice.
 
That said, congratulations to @jhatty8 for killing it in the vote! I'll be publishing the short story this weekend, and getting a finalized PDF over to @McWolf. This sim sports community is the best one I've been a part of, and I'm thrilled we were able to donate a few bones to a very worthy cause.
 

I said dream not nightmare 

2 with 3's text is the best of both worlds I think.
 
3 does it best overall.

Hello graphics gurus,
 
As you may remember, for the holiday charity fundraiser, I auctioned off naming rights for the main character of a new short story. The story has gone through several revisions and is ready to publish...except that I haven't been able to make a cover. This is where you come in! Once this is done, I can get the finished product up on Amazon and anyone who wants to will be able to check it out for 99 cents, or for free if they have Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.
 
Details
 
1 -  The cover size needs to be 2,560 x 1,600 pixels, obviously 2560 tall, since it's a cover.
2 - Conceptually, I'm looking at a night scene, purple/black sky, with a futuristic city taking up the majority of the middle and top thirds of the frame in the background. Ideally there would be one skyscraper that is taller than the rest, but that doesn't matter as much. The bottom section is in the foreground, a brick wall, where the title of the story and my last name (pen name) is spraypainted. 
3 - The title of the story is -7 and my last name is Emerson. 
 
I've been working on this for a month and can't make anything that looks better than a slapdash hack job. I think for someone who knows what they're doing, it probably wouldn't take more than 20 minutes, but for me, I'm just guessing and moving sliders and making a goddamn mess. Any other details/questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
 
Thanks in advance!

Below are the top 5 S83 Draft prospects by TPE total:
 
273 TPE - Center – Scotty Sundin – Playing for the nearly-unstoppable Houston Bulls, the 6'2" Swede is a shoot-first, shoot-second, shoot-third player. More on that later. His 24 goals and 46 points in 30 games put him 7th in VHLM scoring. 
 
262 TPE - Goaltender – Brandt Fuhr – Fuhr has the best save percentage of the league's starting goaltenders at a 0.905 and is 6th in goals against average with a 3.41 – all this while facing an average of 36.5 shots per game, which is the most in the league. Fuhr is a big netminder, standing 6'4" tall, and well-balanced in terms of his skillset.
 
250 TPE - Defense – Hammar Voss – Our first blueliner and the VHLM's second-leading scoring from the point. The biggest difference between his build and Sundin's is a bigger emphasis on puck handling, as there's no need for faceoff TPE allocation. Another Houston Bulls players, Voss is a valuable weapon for the league's top team.
 
247 TPE - Center – Igor Molotov – Leading the VHLM in scoring with 68 points, Molotov's build is nearly identical to Sundin's and Voss'. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear that. Originality be damned – the Miami Marauders are certainly reaping the benefits, but the concept of build diversity is suffocating.
 
236 TPE - Defense – Air Rig Good Brand Sun – Aside from having one of the worst names to type out in the draft class this side of Hasbulla Magomedov and Diabetic Cheese, Air Rig has the most unique skater build of the top 4 in the class. His 45 points in 30 games for the powerhouse Houston Bulls [notice a theme?] are good for tops in defensive scoring, narrowly edging out Voss. While he's another "all scoring, no passing" player, he has a decently developed checking game, which sets him apart from his peers on this list.

@GrittyIsKing
 
thus completes the trade

A brief update on this project from the charity event:
 
Spoke to my coworker this past week about the cover idea I want to build. He's infinitely more talented at digital art and manipulation, and said he'd be willing to work on the cover, though he cautioned me that he is "slow". 

Dil is a very unique individual! There is truly nobody like him. 
2

Hello and welcome to my channel
 
Please post below with the following and you will be entered in a raffle to decide where my next player (to be created at this season's TDL) originates from:
- 🤯 like on the original post
- say something nice about @Dil (MUST BE ORIGINAL - NO DUPLICATES)
- Post the next consecutive positive integer (consider this post 0)
 
All entries will be included in a random drawing next week - date and time to be determined
 
Thanks
 
-frescoelmo

VHL Wordle 
https://vhl-wordle.herokuapp.com
 6 1/6
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