Hybrid Attributes: Ending the Meta

[Grape 739]

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Spade18 1,308]

I see there are no stats for fighting?

 

How will that be handled

[Spartan 4,531]

9 minutes ago, Spade18 said:

I see there are no stats for fighting?

 

How will that be handled

Grit has fighting and checking in it

[Spade18 1,308]

26 minutes ago, Spartan said:

Grit has fighting and checking in it

thnx bb

[Motzaburger 1,590]

can someone explain this to me like I am 4 years old

[Beketov 9,102]

2 minutes ago, Motzaburger said:

can someone explain this to me like I am 4 years old

Your TPE goes into the hybrid attributes which translates the TPE into 1 or 2 STHS attributes in various ratios. This means, for example, that you can’t max scoring without adding to passing.

[Motzaburger 1,590]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Your TPE goes into the hybrid attributes which translates the TPE into 1 or 2 STHS attributes in various ratios. This means, for example, that you can’t max scoring without adding to passing.

merci beaucoup

[ColeMrtz 574]

Can’t wait to dump my first 210 TPE into O vision and shooting

[Enorama 2,039]

10 minutes ago, ColeMrtz said:

Can’t wait to dump my first 210 TPE into O vision and shooting

 

[emidas 82]

I think this is an interesting change. I'm not sold it does what it's designed to do, but it's interesting.

 

I had a similar idea to expand player builds in other leagues, but the formulas would be hidden. This would delay any meta formation and increase the longevity of the phase where players are still learning the game. I say delay because a meta will always be defined, eventually - many game developers want to be ignorant of that, but it will always happen. There's also nothing inherently wrong with having a meta, as long as it's healthy (which it seems, yours was not, hence the change).

 

From what I've seen here, I can definitely still see a meta forming picking the specific hybrid attributes that still create the widest gap between scoring and passing. However, I'm sure that will be healthier than what currently exists, no matter the success of the rest of this system.

 

It'll be interesting to revisit this change in 5-10 seasons and see how things have changed.

[Beketov 9,102]

1 minute ago, emidas said:

I think this is an interesting change. I'm not sold it does what it's designed to do, but it's interesting.

 

I had a similar idea to expand player builds in other leagues, but the formulas would be hidden. This would delay any meta formation and increase the longevity of the phase where players are still learning the game. I say delay because a meta will always be defined, eventually - many game developers want to be ignorant of that, but it will always happen. There's also nothing inherently wrong with having a meta, as long as it's healthy (which it seems, yours was not, hence the change).

 

From what I've seen here, I can definitely still see a meta forming picking the specific hybrid attributes that still create the widest gap between scoring and passing. However, I'm sure that will be healthier than what currently exists, no matter the success of the rest of this system.

 

It'll be interesting to revisit this change in 5-10 seasons and see how things have changed.

We actually discussed both of your key points so I’ll just touch on them quickly.

 

Firstly it was decided pretty early on to not hide the real attribute ratios because we felt it gave the BOG an unfair advantage since we knew what they were but no one else would. Even if we kept the final ratios from the BOG the devs would at least know it. This unfairness didn’t seem reasonable to us, especially when people would likely just reverse engineer it anyway.

 

Secondly a large portion of our testing was focused on what the “meta gap” should look like. IE if scoring is maxed what should we have as the minimum passing to not be over-powered. This is what we based the ratios for those attributes on. So people can 100% sim for the “most meta” build based on current information but it’s not going to work out as they think it will since our testing shows that it actually makes you far worse than a “proper” meta. Additionally the cost would be very high and since an individual meta player is less of a concern than a whole team the issue should be resolved.

 

Naturally things could go completely awry since obviously we couldn’t test every build but luckily with the foundation in place we can tweak the values if we need to. I do agree with you though that there is always going to be some “meta.” By definition a meta is just the best strategy and that will always be found. The key is keeping other strategies still viable which right now nothing else really is.

[emidas 82]

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

We actually discussed both of your key points so I’ll just touch on them quickly.

 

Firstly it was decided pretty early on to not hide the real attribute ratios because we felt it gave the BOG an unfair advantage since we knew what they were but no one else would. Even if we kept the final ratios from the BOG the devs would at least know it. This unfairness didn’t seem reasonable to us, especially when people would likely just reverse engineer it anyway.

 

Secondly a large portion of our testing was focused on what the “meta gap” should look like. IE if scoring is maxed what should we have as the minimum passing to not be over-powered. This is what we based the ratios for those attributes on. So people can 100% sim for the “most meta” build based on current information but it’s not going to work out as they think it will since our testing shows that it actually makes you far worse than a “proper” meta. Additionally the cost would be very high and since an individual meta player is less of a concern than a whole team the issue should be resolved.

 

Naturally things could go completely awry since obviously we couldn’t test every build but luckily with the foundation in place we can tweak the values if we need to. I do agree with you though that there is always going to be some “meta.” By definition a meta is just the best strategy and that will always be found. The key is keeping other strategies still viable which right now nothing else really is.

 

Yeah, to be clear - the hidden attributes I suggested in my post were for a new project that I would design but not participate in. In current leagues where a group of people have to make that decision and also participate, I think it's unrealistic to expect to be able to hide anything exactly for the reasons you mention. Nobody that participates should ever have that level of an advantage over others.

 

 

[McWolf 3,116]

15 hours ago, emidas said:

I think this is an interesting change. I'm not sold it does what it's designed to do, but it's interesting.

 

I had a similar idea to expand player builds in other leagues, but the formulas would be hidden. This would delay any meta formation and increase the longevity of the phase where players are still learning the game. I say delay because a meta will always be defined, eventually - many game developers want to be ignorant of that, but it will always happen. There's also nothing inherently wrong with having a meta, as long as it's healthy (which it seems, yours was not, hence the change).

 

From what I've seen here, I can definitely still see a meta forming picking the specific hybrid attributes that still create the widest gap between scoring and passing. However, I'm sure that will be healthier than what currently exists, no matter the success of the rest of this system.

 

It'll be interesting to revisit this change in 5-10 seasons and see how things have changed.

Metas are fine. Meta really just means most effective tactics. There's always gonna be a most effective way to apply TPE. The main issue with what we had vs what we are going for with the hybrid attributes is that the former meta build could be reached at like 400-500 TPE. So you could have depth players with basically full meta build, and if you start them early enough, you can have a full meta team with no superstar that's still going to crush any non-meta team, regardless of how many superstars they have.

 

With the hybrid attributes and the way they are going to affect the actual STHS attributes, you can't have the meta low PA, high SC, high DF anymore, not until you're in the 800+ TPE range, and the gap between PA and SC is gonna be much much smaller than it was without these restrictions. Having a meta is fine, but having a meta that's available for rookies is stupid. If low PA, high SC, high DF is still the most efficient way to build a player, so be it, but at least it'll be available to only veteran players, and not any depth player with 350 TPE.

[Shindigs 1,771]

Since the gap is basically enforced to ranges where it's pretty much "meh" no matter what as long as you intend to go shoot first. The shift really becomes more towards efficiency. Figuring out what the most cost efficient plateaus of key attribute will become, and the most efficient way to hit those plateaus. Which means you could build the exact same player (in STHS) in multiple different ways on the portal, and some of those ways will be inherently bad.

 

Over time people will figure out the most efficient lines and get more bang for their buck TPA wise, that's probably going to be a very core thing to the success of your player. Just earlier today I was sent a build of a player that shall remain unnamed, simply by looking at my own optimization sheet I remade his exact same build for significantly less TPE and was able to add I think around +6 to key/core attributes without losing anything for the exact same TPA. I forget the exact numbers, but I think when I just remade the exact build before adding the extra attributes it came out to the range of 20-30 saved TPA in a 500 TPA build, that's 6-9 millions worth of uncapped TPE for free just by juggling numbers. The higher your TPA becomes the more costly your errors do, so we're about to get nerdy with our builds now.

 

What this does mean is that the more casual member now has an infinitely larger pool of possible ways to completely fuck themselves, but then us 1st gens always do that before reading anything anyways. So that's hardly newsworthy in itself. But it does mean that people who like playing around with build optimization now actually have a source of doing so in the VHL, so that's content that didn't exist. I personally love playing around with that stuff, so that's great news for me, at least.

 

But it will mean that M GMs are likely going to have to get at least a working understanding of this to pass on to their 1st gens, because it's not longer as easy as "get 70 in this, then that". Sure, we'll probably build up a library of starter builds much like the SBA has, over time. But until then it's going to be a bit chaotic. You can actually still hit 70SC in the M if you're so inclined, just have to live with 40SK/PH to do so lol. But a relatively balanced build can still get into the low/mid 60s for SC and mid/high 50s for DF...Unless you're a center and actually want FO, then you're kinda boned in the M lol

[Spartan 4,531]

4 hours ago, Shindigs said:

But it will mean that M GMs are likely going to have to get at least a working understanding of this to pass on to their 1st gens, because it's not longer as easy as "get 70 in this, then that". Sure, we'll probably build up a library of starter builds much like the SBA has, over time. But until then it's going to be a bit chaotic.

We are trying to avoid putting this kind of pressure on GM's at all levels to somehow gain a mastery of the changes. That's why we're allowing everyone to reroll for free once within three seasons of this change. It doesn't make sense to expect M GM's to be teaching first gens how to build perfectly or in a completely efficient way right now, and we've made sure that we have measures to fix builds down the line. Expect to potentially see an additional layer of protection for first-gens with their builds soon.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Spartan

[Shindigs 1,771]

7 minutes ago, Spartan said:

We are trying to avoid putting this kind of pressure on GM's at all levels to somehow gain a mastery of the changes. That's why we're allowing everyone to reroll for free once within three seasons of this change. It doesn't make sense to expect M GM's to be teaching first gens how to build perfectly or in a completely efficient way right now, and we've made sure that we have measures to fix builds down the line. Expect to potentially see an additional layer of protection for first-gens with their builds soon.

That makes a lot of sense. Because those 1st week mistakes suck enough as is. Speaking from experience. But you know the 1st gen will have a lot of questions about this system, and being able to give somewhat reasonable responses would be nice.

 

I'm not expecting everyone to get deep into the theorycrafting of how to get the best bang for your buck, but knowing enough to limit the confusion of your 1st gens will probably be pretty necessary. The first few weeks can already be pretty daunting and this will add to that, to some degree, so mitigating it seems pretty important. That being said we are all learning right now, and will be for some seasons until we actually see what works in this new era.

[animal74 1,855]

I really like the new changes although I do see an area that seems to penalize those who have been trying not to build a meta player per se. Take my build for instance: In order to bring Checking up to where I want it (low-90s), I have to add a lot of fighting due to there only being two hybrid attributes for Checking and one for Fighting. What if I don't want a lot of Fighting and then have to waste TPA on Discipline to try and counteract it?

 

On the flip side if someone does want to build an all-out fighter, the highest they can put fighting is 69. Just seems like these two stats, which are typically "non-meta" are getting the short end of the stick.

 

ALSO...

 

Just did a test build with the same amount of TPA (842) as I currently have.

 

My current build "points" (add attributes together): 850

Test build points: 789

 

That is a significant difference. Now I guess everyone will have similar drops but that seems a bit steep?

 

Comments from the BOG? Thanks.

Edited March 14, 2022 by animal74

[OrbitingDeath 3,229]

I'm in the more CK options without FI team with animal!

[Beketov 9,102]

2 hours ago, animal74 said:

Now I guess everyone will have similar drops but that seems a bit steep?

I hate to sound harsh but tbh that’s not actually steep at all. For example I tested Lahtinen’s build and it took over 1400 TPA compared to like 980. You’ve got probably one of the cheaper changes

 

You did touch on the reasoning at the end here though, everyone will drop. If everyone gets worse, no one gets worse. Yes, TPE is worth less than it used to be, that’s inevitable. When you consider that most people could have a complete and top line ready build by 400 and a completely dominant build by 800 there needed to be a change. I implore you to not consider what was but rather what is. That you used to be able to max out every important stat in 900 TPE is meaningless because that not only broke the engine hard but was also way too easy to achieve.

 

We aren’t punishing people for builds of others, we are eliminating the broken build while offering tools to vary builds up. Arguably something crazy like yours is getting easier. Yes, it’s more TPE but the increase is significantly less than what many builds would need so in relation to everyone else it’s no more difficult if that makes sense. Everything is relative.

 

As for the fighting thing: the idea behind putting fighting in with checking was that a heavy hitting goon type player is likely also going to be one that gets into fights. You can get it into a totally reasonable amount without touching fighting and ultimately we can’t give every attribute  it’s own or else we remove all the benefit of the hybrids. Fighting is, however, a very specific sub-attribute so a solution that we could go for Would be fighting on its own (.36 maybe like passing) and then lower the fighting ratio on grit. I do like it being there because there should always be balance like I said, you can’t just have every attribute on its own and specifically a player aiming for 90+ checking probably would fight on occasion. However the ratio of how much fighting you end up with from that might be too high and could be adjusted.

[Beketov 9,102]

FWIW @Spartan and I ran the numbers and you can get to 75 Checking without  a single point into fighting if you so choose. To get above that you need a bit of fighting but it’s a minor amount. For example you can get checking to 90 without needing to max any hybrid attribute (nothing above 90) and your fighting would only be 62. To me that’s not unreasonable for having such a high checking stat.

 

This is ultimately the balance: so you spend a lot of TPE to avoid fighting or do you spend less and get more checking out of it BUT you have the trade off of having a bit of fighting. The system is designed around these trade offs because it allows for different choices and builds instead of just dumping exactly the amount you want into X and completely ignoring Y. You wanna be a goon, sometimes that means dropping the gloves.

[animal74 1,855]

Fair enough. Thanks for taking the time and giving the explanation @Beketov

[Spartan 4,531]

quick maths

[animal74 1,855]

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

You wanna be a goon, sometimes that means dropping the gloves.

But I'm a nice goon!

 

[Enorama 2,039]

13 hours ago, animal74 said:

What if I don't want a lot of Fighting and then have to waste TPA on Discipline to try and counteract it?

 

Just stepping in to touch on something Bek + Spartan didn't. DI in STHS actually acts as basically anti-checking. Adding to both at the same time would essentially waste TPA on both sides of it.

[Shindigs 1,771]

Another point to touch on, which this year's top Hitting players in the league kinda does a good job of highlighting, is that Checking is basically a relative attribute. How many hits you throw is based on how much hitting you have compared to everyone else on your line, right? Hence why 70 Checking Vasile Lamb and 80 CK Duncan Idaho have more hits than 99 CK Vinny Detroit, I mean part of that is probably ice time too. I didn't want to delve too deeply into it. But that's how I've been told it works, and the stats do seem to back it up.

 

The point then being, as Bek touched upon, if you can no longer spend 30 TPE to get 70 CK like today. Then you won't have as many discount Power Forwards as today to compete with, because you now need to spend 115 TPE to get 70 CK instead. Which should make your 70+ CK player have a similar "edge" on the competition, as your 90 CK player does today. Because those discount Power Forwards will now have 50 CK with a 30 TPE investment instead of 70. So you're still about 20 ahead, same as today.