nurx's Fantastic Podcast Ep. 2

[nurx 914]

https://anchor.fm/nurx/episodes/nurxs-Fantastic-Podcast-Ep--2-e1bbt0e

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, here is the 2nd edition of my long boy podcast. Talk about a bunch of random junk but here is a general idea of what I spew about.

1. What's happening in my life.
2. Breaking down why I think D-men don't exist as a response to @BladeMaidenand @rjfryman
3. Miami Marauders Blues
4. Stockholm and Yun Chiang
5. My problem with the VHLE

Mentions: @BladeMaiden @rjfryman @Shindigs @Nothing but goals @Alexandre @a_Fork

Claiming 12/12, 12/19

Edited December 7, 2021 by nurx

[Shindigs 1,771]

Sweet, gonna listen to it tonight and will get back with feedback then. @nurx

[a_Ferk 766]

I am in university and I have an exam for microeconomics too, but not until the 18th. Good luck.

 

It's absolutely easier to make a forward for your first player in the league, I agree. I was a RW and even one of the players in my first gen class that found success at defense was a winger first.

 

Regarding fighting, I think you have it opposite. It doesn't increase fighting skill, it increases frequency. So you just get into more fights I'm pretty sure.

 

I agree, players mostly don't want to be a defenseman because their stats aren't as flashy. (Unless you're Biggie Cheese/the best player on your team). Defensive players only get points if they're the star. Absolutely agree that forwards have more name recognition, you only become a household name as a d man if you're an extremely good offensive defenseman. Most fans don't care too much about defense.

 

I think Miami's biggest problem right now is that you only have 3 defense. That means a bot defenseman has to play quite a large portion of the game. Your team is also quite top heavy. Outside the stars, most players have lower TPE.

 

I agree about the VHLE. I've started to care about it a bit more lately just because my player is doing quite well, but generally it's pretty inactive. Your opinion on it also might be more of a popular opinion than you think.

 

Next season in Riga should be fun. Damn right one of us will win roty. 9/10

Edited December 7, 2021 by a_Fork

[Horcrux 322]

so a few thoughts. @nurx

1.) great listen, maybe have a notepad with bullet points to help keep you on track. 

You are approaching the VHLM like the VHL. int he VHL its about stats, getting cups and getting the W's however in the VHLM none of that stuff matters. the M is about teaching, learning, teaching the new players how to update, how to use the forum and portal then move them along. your mindset is a GM for the VHLE/VHL that Mindset doesn't work in the M

as for the E its not an issue TBH, I think you are thinking it a problem because the mindset you hold above. the M is about development and pushing the players UP, nothing else matters. the E is still NEW and we need to give it a chance, their simply not enough Data or time have passed to judge whether the E is a success or failure and i think talking about the E as such is irresponsible. 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Horcrux

[Shindigs 1,771]

Regarding the lack of flashiness of Defense. The thing is that the lack of ease of access to the needed stats is an issue, but that's pretty much being discussed to death all over the place. And I've basically said all I need to say on the matter. But there is the fact that in the NHL you HAVE access to all those stats, as well as advanced stats of varying degrees of usefulness. When I play Eastside Hockey Manager, which lacks all of the advanced stats (and some not so advanced stats) I have my own spreadsheet to track my own variations of advanced stats/analytics. So it's not that I'm against analytics, as I use them myself to assess my teams there. But most people do no care about analytics at all. Most NHL fans think elite two-way defensemen are "overpaid" and don't even know their names half the time. How many people know/care about Marc Methot's dependable defensive play giving Erik Karlsson the freedom to absolutely hard carry Ottawa offensively at his peak? Very, very few fans outside of die-hard Ottawa fans (all two of them) know that.

 

Part of the issue is that the things that make an elite defensive player are a) incredibly hard to spot with the eye test unless YOU are an elite defensive defenseman, and you're not, so you don't even know what to look for realistically and b) defensive defenseman stats are usually more about being "the least bad" than the "most good". So even really good defensive stats are still pretty bad, unless you know what to compare it to and put it into context. Most stats that require a lot of context to evaluate will be very misunderstood in any facet of life , not just hockey.

 

There was a super interesting start to a possession tracking script and discussion that I found on the forum on like my 2nd day in the league. Only to see it was ancient and had I think 0 replies. That's how much people care about defensive numbers when they are presented to them on a silver platter. So how are they supposed to even try to care when it takes hours of work or programming knowledge to acquire said stats in the first place? They just won't.

 

The current meta is very strong and I do no have the numbers, or a feasible way to acquire them (yet) to actually start looking at them and analyzing them. But from just a general thought process the current meta *shouldn't* be optimal. If it is then Simon has just completely f'd up the sim to an outrageous degree (likely). But usually, if we distill hockey into pure numbers like in any game. Then we can start applying some general mathematical ideas of scaling that apply to basically any game. Which is that you aim for maximum efficiency of what you have available by minimizing diminishing returns. To put it into a relatively simple example:

 

Team A has 2 elite snipers who *could* score 40 goal (we're using IRL numbers, not Simon numbers), and two elite playmakers. If you put the 2 snipers on the same line, neither will score 40 goals. Because you have two players both trying to shoot as much as possible and only 1 puck. You will hit diminishing returns, and your two 40 goal scorers will realistically, at best, be 35ish goal scorers. You just lost 10 potential goals from stacking them on one line. And you also have an elite playmaker on your second line with no one to pass to. So he won't hit his max potential assists either, so you are effectively double-dipping on diminishing returns.

 

Team B has 2 the exact same players. But play one sniper and one pure playmaker on each line, adding in a checking/defensive forward as the 3rd (because we now have 1 empty slot per line). There is now nothing applying relevant diminishing returns to either scorer (both get 40 goals) and both playmakers have an outlet (get max assists) while also having a checking/def forward (maximizing possession).

 

Team B has more goals due to avoiding diminishing returns, more possession, due to being able to fit a possession specialist on each line. Which means potential for over 40 goals (though the checking forward will obviously "steal" some goals).

 

However, if you can shoot enough, with good enough S%, then all this falls apart and the current meta can actually be ideal. But it *shouldn't* be ideal, as if you have triple scorers on the same line you should be losing out on possession (negative multiplier to total possible shots), losing out on potential shots because all your scorers are having a sausage party on the same line, and so on.

 

This creates a very symbiotic relationship where your checker feeds you passer who feeds you scorer. This makes all roles valuable to a GM that understands this principle. Though if we go back to EHM. Almost everyone playing that game just stacks snipers, playmakers and offensive defensemen. Because they don't know how to read defensive stats, the game doesn't either btw. It gives defensive defensemen GARBAGE average rating, even when they are playing out of their mind. So even the game dev doesn't know what good defense is, which is sad/hilarious depending on how you look at it. So realistically they could reach far better results by mixing in said defensive specialists, than by just going full sausage party. The funny thing is, that since this bias isn't just a VHL thing. It's a "hockey" thing. It means that these defensive players, though better for your competitiveness than adding excessive snipers/passers, will almost universally ask for less pay. Because guess what? If everyone undervalues them, that means their market value is lower. So not ONLY is it ideal from a hockey perspective to add them. They also give you cap discounts. That is the really insane part, to me. When trying to stay in contention as long as possible, having that flexibility is absolutely massive.

 

The same idea carries over onto your D pairings. If you have two offensive defensemen, they will just step on each others toes. BUT if you have 2 defensive defensemen, only one of them can break up each pass. So they ALSO suffer from diminishing returns. This is why you pair one offensive and defensive D. Basically everyone knows that's just "what you do". But not everyone thinks about it as a way of managing diminishing returns, because that's like the most ultra-nerdy way possible to think about it.

 

From this we can conclude that the defensive player, who is the first part of the chain leading to a goal: checker => passer => scorer for fwd, or defensive => offensive => scorer for dmen. Only has real synergistic value if you have all the parts of the chain that come after them. If you are like Miami this season and you have 3 Defensive Defensemen and 3 "hybrid" forwards with Pass=Sco then you have a broken chain. Which devalues the defensive defenseman, as the possession they provide is useless unless you have the offense first, whereas offense without defense works (just not optimally). If we go back to my original comparison of being like any game. Let's take League of Legends (because almost everyone has played it) and let's say that possession is the same as uptime, and uptime is basically your move speed. Passing is essentially attack speed/crit chance and scoring is Attack Damage.

 

If you have a champion with 1000 move speed who literally can't be kited. But it has no attack speed and no AD. IT LOSES, because you have perfect 100% uptime, sure. But you can't DO anything with that uptime.

 

If you have max attack speed but no move speed or AD. You just get kited and tickle them when you do hit them. Useless...

 

If you have insane AD with no attack speed or move speed. You may be able to one-shot someone, but only if they let you get close enough. Hey, this works! Just not perfectly.

 

Whereas if you are a 3 item ADC with movespeed, attack speed/crit and AD in a good mix. They cannot kite you, the multiplicative scaling of attack speed/crit outscales only raw AD, and the AD gives you enough base damage to have something to scale with the attack speed/crit. This is just math, it doesn't matter what your application is. You always stack your "flat damage" which is = scoring in the VHL until it starts hitting diminishing returns, then you add as many multiplicative scaling sources as possible to that, to reach maximum efficiency. Mathematically that should be optimal. If it isn't, it's because Simon screwed up the numbers on Scoring to the point that it has such absurdly high base values that it makes the bonus of our multiplicative scalers irrelevant. The numbers to actually look at this and come up with some kind of relatively objective result would be near impossible to gather for me, though.

 

Alternatively those scalers are there, the passers who are defying the meta being sprinkled into the lineups are the REAL reason the meta works, because without them we have a broken chain. And if those go away and everyone goes full meta, then scoring will eventually drop as their multiplicative scalers, who are currently taken for granted, simply disappear. Goal scorers will always get accidental assists more often than pure passers will get accidental goals. So a lot of the time this will lead to more total points for that scorer, which looks better on paper. But that doesn't make that passer/faceoff man/defensive expert any less important to that meta forward being able to reach maximum stat padding possible.

 

Shit that got out of hand as far as length is concerned. But I just think this is a really interesting topic to dive deep on. So here we are. Hope I brought up something that was interesting to someone.

[JardyB10 4,865]

- “I think the point of podcasts is to ramble for 30 minutes.” 
 

 

- “I have 69 shots right now.” Nice.

 

- Shindigs is a fucking nerd. See the above post. 
 

- “I don’t know how useful Fighting is.” Not a lot of people do!

 

- “No one cares about Faceoff stats.” Just you wait, S88 greatest faceoff player of all time coming at ya!

 

- Forwards and goalies are definitely the “sexiest” positions, and that is ultimately why there’s a surplus in those positions.

 

- I blame Morale for some of Miami and Halifax’s losses. I don’t know how significant it actually is, but I blame it all the same.

 

- I think what a lot of VHLE naysayers who only make the “stepping stone” case forget is A. VHLM was and is just as much of a stepping stone, and B. I forgot my second point. I promise Increasing the cap in the VHLM and making it more competitive in that matter would not be good. That was literally ground zero of the VHLM’s very first problem, no new member wants to hang out and get pummelled in a league of 300 TPE semi actives.

 

Additionally, as Beketov stated in another thread, your take on the VHLE is nearly identical to a common take on the VHLM half our lifetime ago. There’s always changes to be made, but the one that needs to be made the most is the attitude toward the league. I understand it’s hard to get too hyped up about a league that represents a small percentage of a player career, but again, that’s always been the case for the VHLM

[Shindigs 1,771]

On 12/8/2021 at 9:11 PM, JardyB10 said:

- Shindigs is a fucking nerd. See the above post. 

I mean I'm not going to argue with that.

 

On 12/8/2021 at 9:11 PM, JardyB10 said:

- I think what a lot of VHLE naysayers who only make the “stepping stone” case forget is A. VHLM was and is just as much of a stepping stone, and B. I forgot my second point. I promise Increasing the cap in the VHLM and making it more competitive in that matter would not be good. That was literally ground zero of the VHLM’s very first problem, no new member wants to hang out and get pummelled in a league of 300 TPE semi actives.

Yeah, I've largely flipped my viewpoint of this over the last few days or however long it's been. The argument for the higher cap is to make players like Bo have a shot at a beast 2nd season in the VHLM. But they only need that to make up for being pummeled by insta-capped 200 TPE recreates. But if Bo stays one more season. Then Bo is the 200 TPE "recreate" that pummels the next generation of 1st gens who now also want to stay 1 more year to pummel the next generation of new gens. And the cycle continues. After a very constructive chat with @Horcrux about it. As well as going back and reading her MS on the subject. It made me realize that I was trying to solve Bo's problem in a selfish manner instead of actually thinking about the underlying cause.

 

So if anything, much like you and Al touched upon in your podcast. There might need to be a bigger movement to shipping recreates to the E instantly, or to have a "team max" like with overagers in the IRL CHL. Possibly also something of a change in how the waiver system works. Because as much as the NHL waiver system is a tire fire that requires 4 tables to figure out if a player is/isn't eligible, and so many niche rules that actual NHL GM's sometimes forget them. It does do one thing right, imo. It gives the team that needs a player first dibs. The current system of "let the 1m old prospect get bombarded by offers" and have them pick. Means that you end up in situations like Miami this year. We have no players, in 1 week all our Dmen except Bo go inactive and a couple forwards too. While other teams are basically full. Wouldn't it make sense if teams got prio on waivers based on how many roster spots they still need to fill? A 1st gen who creates tomorrow will have 1st pairing minutes on Miami, but do they know that? Not necessarily. So having something in the waiver rules similar to the NHLs "worst goes first" rule. But "least goes first" should go a long way to leveling out the roster numbers at least.

[nurx 914]

claiming again 12/19