LucyXpher

When I took the VSN Head role, I was excited to have the great opportunity to bring a bit of my own creativity to the role. I really do believe that VSN is important for the life of the league-- especially in the forum space-- highlighting exceptional members and storylines, and providing commentary on seasonal events and milestones. I will admit, however, that it wasn't a job I was actively seeking out at the time since my two main priorities (and interests) in the VHL were with my player and my team as GM. I'm happy with what I think I was able to contribute to VSN in two seasons as Head Editor, but I'm ready to pass the role along to another individual who has interest and passion for the role-- especially as we approach the S100 milestone. So with that said, I will be stepping down as VSN Head as soon as a suitable replacement can be found. To be clear, I very much intend to stay active and contribute to the VSN in other ways, perhaps writing articles or creating graphics when needed, but at this time I don't feel I have the enthusiasm for the role to be resposible for the week-to-week management of the VSN to the standard that I would hold myself to. Additionally, I think I owe it to my team (Malmo) to not spread myself thin and be all in as the team's GM. On top of that, coming to the end of my college semester and considering what I do next in life as I finish my program, it's probably best that I'm not overcommitted to this excellent passtime we call the VHL. I've thoroughly loved this community in my time here so far and I have every intention of sticking around for the long term, but I don't want to get to a point where I feel it becomes more of a burden than blessing. So VSN will be looking for a new Head Editor. Since I was approached personally by @Pifferfish to take over the role, and he was named by @Alex after his long tenure which began before I joined VHL, I'm frankly not sure how to go about finding a new replacement besides personally chatting with someone who expresses interest and would seem to be a good fit. If the commissioners would like to have some say in the matter, I'm happy to pass the hiring off to them. In the meantime, however, if anyone has any interest and thinks they might be a good fit for the position, please reach out to me personally and I'd be happy to chat with you about what the job entails in more detail. In short, the VSN Head has the following responsibilities: 1. Ensuring that VSN posts regularly, covering the major events throughout the season (drafts, trade deadlines, etc...) 2. Editing and proofreading articles that are posted to ensure that they are generally free of grammatical and formatting errors 3. Generally coordinating collaborations between the writers, podcasters, and graphics contributors so that articles and podcasts are posted with engaging visuals 4. Managing the VSN Discord server and overseeing scheduled VSN content In my opinion, I think a good candidate for this position would ideally be someone who doesn't have another VHL job at the moment, or is looking for a new role. I say this partly because it could be a source of burnout if you have too much going on already, but with the job pay provided from the VSN Head role, having another VHL job might be a bit redundant in terms of TPE earning. The job pay for the VSN Head position is 10 capped TPE per week, which is definitely a big perk of the job. As I said, please reach out personally if you have any interest in taking over this role and we can chat more, and if commissioners would like to have some say, also let me know! Thanks to everyone at VSN who did such an amazing job with your contributions during my time as head and for really making it worthwhile!

Amazing choices!!! All three teams will be in great hands!!

Go BOATS! ️️

Really interesting read! And definitely a lot to consider when viewing posts, leaving reactions, and sometimes comments. I think a lot of online negativity often comes from the part of people— even really kind and good people— that gets suppressed in normal face to face interactions. I think, consciously and subconsciously that suppressed negative, pessimistic, cynical, or even cruel side can come out in the form of trolling or just plain being mean because the perceived consequences for doing so online are far less than in a face to face interaction, though the repercussions can sometimes be worse because those on the receiving end don’t have the benefit of reading body language, facial expressions, or intuiting why someone might be lashing out. And when all you have to go on are upvote/downvote reactions and random comments, the little things can often be taken as more than they are really meant to be. And even on the positive side, I think there are many examples where online affirmation comes with its own unhealthy patterns. It’s definitely good to put it all in perspective, whether it’s positive or negative and take it all with a pinch of salt. And at the same time, making the extra effort to be a good human, even in the digital medium, can go a long way. Thanks for sharing this!

From what I've gathered reading the STHS forums, and SimonT's replies specifically, DI definitely reduces PIMS by reducing hits since that is primarily where PIMS come from. It also seemed suggested too that DI would likely reduce the number of fights or non-physical penalties your player might take (random game misconducts). I'd be kinda curious to see a DI/PIM graph since I don't think you had one above as you focused primarily on hits as the main culprit for PIMS and I wonder if DI has some unaccounted value in limiting other various types of PIMS. Also, anecdotally, my DI rating in S97 seemed to do very little to prevent me from hitting and taking penalties, and interestingly, the seasons where I hit more and took more penalties resulted in higher personal points totals and team hardware. Obviously the sample size is wayyyy too small to make any conclusions, but it does kinda baffle me since I'd be inclined to invest in DI if I hadn't already tried that with a result that went completely against what I'd expect. What I think we might take from this, though, is that there are numerous other factors that contribute to high hits/pims totals, including relative CK rating to teammates and opponents. I honestly have no clue, but my own personal results leave me a little more confused than anything about the value of DI and hits. S98 Prague: 65 CK, 40 DI - 119 hits, 48 pims, 31.12 AMG, 63 points (rerolled) S97 Malmo: 67 CK, 61 DI - 193 hits, 115 pims, 28.79 AMG, 92 points, Victory Cup S96 Riga: 67 CK, 40 DI - 73 hits, 85 pims, 29.61 AMG, 79 points S95 Riga: 67 CK, 40 DI - 150 hits, 119 pims, 30.20 AMG, 86 points, Continental Cup Not to try and grasp at straws, but is it possible that hitting provides some kind of morale boost in addition to a turnover, which might help boost the value of a turnover caused by a hit? That's total speculation...

Double posted, idk what happened

Awesome graphic! For legal purposes, however, the phrase "Praise be" has been trademarked by the Ash Sparks cult @DarkSpyro. In good faith, we won't be pursuing legal action at this time, but consider yourself notified

so much xhek, so much joy

You're getting so good at these!!

This is awesome!! Thank you!

Thanks again, Sadie! Added to my sig!

I love it Thank you so much Sadie!!

i will not dispute this

I can appreciate this, much respects ... but also...

Awesome choice! Congrats @Ricer13!!

yes

I mean there is tho. A clean hit is when it records you hitting someone and knocking them off the puck, not taking a penalty. That has value because now you have the puck. But I'm sure you're right that it just randomly assigns penalties after a number of hits, which is why DI seems to just decrease total hits to help with pims. There definitely is still some other stuff going on to help limit total hits and pims tho. Like how Viktor Jensen ever had 0 Pims in a VHL season in S92 is crazy. I think it was S92... I take your point, and yeah, you're probably not getting a goal for your team on 5% of your hits. But that also doesn't take into account the value of stopping the opposition. Every hit and turnover means the other team can't score on that possession. It would be very hard to see the full value of that parsed out I think with the stats STHS provides on the index, and you're probably still right that not having CK is probably better. But in the hybrid model we still need CK for high DF and I think it's worth it. Still on the fence about whether adding DI is worth it because it essentially just doubles the TPE cost of that extra DF

And here I thought you were accusing me of tanking Prague's season on purpose just so I could get a better 2nd round pick for Malmo! But yes, PA needs SC since SC is where it either ends in a goal or it's turned over. Also wtf are these Prague sims. Two more losses, 3-2 in each game, outshooting opponents 38-32. Allowed 4 PPG on 10 PKs. This is more than an offense issue, but an extra goal or two would have helped.

The hybrid model makes sense for this just to keep things somewhat realistic-- unless you're Viktor Jensen. I do believe that hits, even with the PIM trade off, are valueable tho, or at least valuable enough not to feel it's necessary to cancel it out by spending more TPE. Like successful hits result in a turnover. I'd love to see someone scrape the index for a season to see if there's actually more value in those turnovers on average than the PK goals against from resulting penalties.

right except hits are actually good if they're clean... so there's definitely a line somewhere where DI can actually just waste the points you invest in CK. Like if you don't want to hit or take pims, why invest in CK? Or maybe there is something to Spartan's theory where the top rated CK players get the lions share of hits and pims because STHS just compares stats to determine who does what anyway. Point being, don't invest in DI if you have less CK than 2-3 other players at your position? idk lol

Interesting theory, this actually makes some sense tbh so that could be part of it. I also didn't notice much difference between PIM totals before and after adding DI so I wasn't sold on keeping it. I think this is the point I'm trying to make. I think there's much more to point scoring in context than there is in pure player build. I mean Simon's Worst Nightmare with 59/61 PA/SC is 3rd in defensive scoring, which suggests to me that in the right environment, PA/SC matter much less than DF, PH, and SK. SWN has 94 DF, 85 SK, and 86 PH. It's not super shocking when you realize he's been the best defender on a team with Gunner and Targaryen. The points come easy then. Maybe with an SC dominant build i could have 10 more points with the current roster construction-- maybe-- but is that getting us in the playoffs? I'm still curious to see if this build can actually work, but I could also just let depreciation "fix" it for me and reallocate the points if need be.

I mean it's impossible to say how my player would perform with SC over PA. On Prague this season, maybe I would score more, but under different circumstances with different teammates and build chemistry, who knows. I don't think anyone really understands the relationship fully between PA and SC builds which is why most just go for the SC primary build and call it a day since that generally performs better. You're still missing my point about how SC costing more means I can't have 96 DF, 97 PH, and 96 SK to go along with 84 PA. The trade off is dropping each of those down by at least 3-4 points each. And sure that probably works, but I still think that those 3 stats being higher has more value than having a SC primary build and I haven't seen enough of a sample size to convince me otherwise. That's the experiment. Also, technically, my player is a SK primary player since there's more than a 10 point gap between SK at 96 and PA at 84, also PH at 97 and ST at 90 help my player keep and control the puck (in theory). As per the decision making formula from Simon himself, SK, PA, and SC are all primary decision making attributes: Theoretically, if Prague had some strong finishers, I think my player could really have a strong season. We just don't have that roster right now. Prague has a scoring issue, sure, but I'd put that down to a lack of SC primary forwards and lack of depth DF. Prague has the 5th most goals against right now and the 6th fewest goals for so safe to say both offense and team defense have been a struggle. I'd argue that improving team DF though would easily help solve alot of the scoring issues more than having another SC primary player. Except last season I had 115 pims with 99 LD and 61 DI. This season I have 40 so far with 0 in both attributes.

So I should have kept my 99 LD and 61 DI? I was told that would be trolling... I like the new build better and I think on paper most would agree not knowing which is which.

Yes, so first, I am aware that SC primary defenders do score more. I won't dispute that, which is why PA is cheaper to add. That being said, scoring points isn't the only consideration for a build. In order to get high SC in the 1250 TPA range (which is where I have to be generally to avoid depreciation), you have to give up a few points in DF, PH, and SK. I made the decision to prioritize those attributes over SC and that has it's own benefits (which I don't think have been realized this season, but may come out when the team is better in the future). It's somewhat of an experiment, but to say that the build I've decided on is "bad" is hyperbolic, that's all I'm saying. It may not be ideal if you're aiming for points over all else, but there's a lot more to sims than points and investing in DF, PH, and SK are typically a good move. Also, from @Pifferfish: Maybe SC primary collects more points over the course of a career, but there's clearly alot of value in PA primary builds as well and with my other attributes being higher than basically anyone on this list, i'm could easily land in this range under different circumstances. I think it has much more to do with team synergy than anything else. I'm pretty sure my player would put up comparable (if not better) numbers than most of the players on this list if I simply replaced them for the season. Something just hasn't worked for Prague in S98.

Yep, but if everyone built the same way, the league could get boring and taking the PA option means I get to have 96 DF, 97 PH, and 96 SK to go with 84 PA. Anyone calling my build bad is trolling. and yes, those are the lines, but I bet Shotzky would perform pretty well Ironhide and Rave. I wonder if they've tried that @McLovin?