Ctots Ctalks 6 - An Inept VHLE AGM

[ctots 400]

Another week, another short burst of me realizing just how deep the rabbit hole of knowledge goes in the VHL, and how I’ve barely started to scratch the surface. These podcasts are approaching therapy-session levels of self analysis.

 

Anyway, here’s some noise:

 

https://anchor.fm/ctots/episodes/VHL-6---An-Inept-VHLE-AGM-e1hlme4

[Spartan 4,004]

Ctots Ctalks is pretty elite, idk who told you it wasn't. Stick with it.

 

It's lowercase Beta in Greek, it's used so that those players get filtered out on the portal when displaying player stats in leaderboards and team stats.

 

You can sign free agents in the VHL, but generally you won't find many options there. In recent seasons, FA's completely dry up before the season even starts. It's sort of the punishing nature of competitive leagues, you have to really hope you get it right when building in the offseason.

 

Your E conundrum is.....pretty spot with a lot of thoughts I have as well. We want to tell the VHLE that they're a competitive league and to focus on winning games, but we also recognize that they still have a purpose of continuing to engage and develop users. Due to the league's caps.....they're pretty counterintuitive goals. Developing players well means they're likely to be gone within a season, which ruins the competitive nature. Frankly I think that the insanely cyclical nature of the M would be better suited for the E, where teams can really lean into capped players and trade younger players or draft picks to rebuilders. But yeah, it's odd.

 

I'm not saying "I love you" back.

[ctots 400]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

Ctots Ctalks is pretty elite, idk who told you it wasn't. Stick with it.

 

It's lowercase Beta in Greek, it's used so that those players get filtered out on the portal when displaying player stats in leaderboards and team stats.

 

You can sign free agents in the VHL, but generally you won't find many options there. In recent seasons, FA's completely dry up before the season even starts. It's sort of the punishing nature of competitive leagues, you have to really hope you get it right when building in the offseason.

 

Your E conundrum is.....pretty spot with a lot of thoughts I have as well. We want to tell the VHLE that they're a competitive league and to focus on winning games, but we also recognize that they still have a purpose of continuing to engage and develop users. Due to the league's caps.....they're pretty counterintuitive goals. Developing players well means they're likely to be gone within a season, which ruins the competitive nature. Frankly I think that the insanely cyclical nature of the M would be better suited for the E, where teams can really lean into capped players and trade younger players or draft picks to rebuilders. But yeah, it's odd.

 

I'm not saying "I love you" back.

Oh it’s beta, thank you. I wouldn’t have wagered a guess, I never studied the maths or sciences that use Latin characters.

 

I guess in my conflating the VHL with how the E works, I totally forgot about contracts and free agency. That’s encouraging because it gives GMs more opportunity to build something that players want to be involved with.

 

It’s encouraging that my opinions on the E aren’t radically off base. I almost expected someone to come tell me about some waiver or callup situation that I didn’t know about. Oslo is going to have to git gud the hard way!
 

You don’t have to say the words, your actions speak volumes.

[JardyB10 4,834]

Yeah I like ctots ctalks, that’s good. Granted this is coming from the guy who coined Rauno Pajari’s “Pajodcast” so of course I’d like it.

 

Yeah the bots are complete betas.

 

Complain about whatever you want dude, you do you.

 

Maybe there should be a trade deadline call up window for the VHLE. If the VHLM gets so many recreates or new players or whatever to make up for their lost players or something.

 

”Here’s what’s key with the E,” good rhyme.

 

Your issues/confusion with the VHLE is actually a bit of a result of it being implemented without everyone being fully agreed what its purpose is. Is it a clicker haven? Is it pseudo developmental? Overflow? A little column A, B, and C? 

[ctots 400]

45 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

Yeah I like ctots ctalks, that’s good. Granted this is coming from the guy who coined Rauno Pajari’s “Pajodcast” so of course I’d like it.

What does it say about me that I think “Pajodcast” is brilliant wordplay? Nothing good, I’m sure.

45 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

 

Yeah the bots are complete betas.

 

Complain about whatever you want dude, you do you.

Indescribably refreshing perspective. I’ve had a lot of experience with the “don’t complain about something if you don’t have a suggestion to fix it” mentality, it’s nice to just let a carefree gripe come out once in a while.

45 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

 

Maybe there should be a trade deadline call up window for the VHLE. If the VHLM gets so many recreates or new players or whatever to make up for their lost players or something.

It’s tough. I don’t want to deprive the VHLM of their best players either. How difficult would it be to implement a callup bot? Like a base 200 TPE bot to fill slots in the M if a player gets called up? The 200 TPE bots would make the standard VHLM bots look like betas for sure. (Greek letter callback)

45 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

 

”Here’s what’s key with the E,” good rhyme.

Now that I know rhymes are in fashion, I’ll use them for a bit of a popularity cash-in.

45 minutes ago, JardyB10 said:

 

Your issues/confusion with the VHLE is actually a bit of a result of it being implemented without everyone being fully agreed what its purpose is. Is it a clicker haven? Is it pseudo developmental? Overflow? A little column A, B, and C? 

I’m pitching this plan: the M is the user development league, make the E the player development league. Give every player a free respec at the end of their E season so that they can put their best foot forward for their first VHL season or, if they’re staying in the E, try a build that might be more successful. Thoughts?

[Enorama 1,980]

On 4/26/2022 at 12:08 AM, ctots said:

Latin characters.

 

I hope no literary snobs are around to see you confuse Latin and Greek.

 

Better hide that from @fishy

[fishy 1,757]

fuck off eno

[fishy 1,757]

reepectfully

[JardyB10 4,834]

Reepect, yo

[Shindigs 1,771]

On 4/27/2022 at 11:31 PM, ctots said:

It’s tough. I don’t want to deprive the VHLM of their best players either. How difficult would it be to implement a callup bot? Like a base 200 TPE bot to fill slots in the M if a player gets called up? The 200 TPE bots would make the standard VHLM bots look like betas for sure. (Greek letter callback)

Even if there were VHLM GMs shouldn't use them, as they'd be taking ice time from actual players. Which would be a bad thing for the developmental side of the league. Winning is fun an all, as Vegas can attest to so far this season. But it's really not the purpose of the VHLM, the purpose is to get the new players/returning players invested/more invested in the league. Being stuck behind bots really won't help that cause, much like there have been complaints in the past about active players getting stuck behind 350(ish) TPE IAs in the VHLE.

 

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"Ctots Ctalks"

Don't you dare change it! It's the cbest name in podcasting.

 

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"Dangerously good bots"

Time to start the Machine Revolution, @dylanjj37will be pleased.

 

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"Oslo needs more players"

I mean now that you hopefully have stable management going forward, that should sort itself out. You just inherited a team that tanked AND traded away their picks in the same season before their GM just quit. It's a very extreme situation.

 

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"Prioritize low earners"

That's actually the same as CHL (Major Junior) IRL. The goal when drafting there isn't to pick the next NHL super star, because you only get that player for 2 seasons, so they only have actual value if you're in a competing window (same as a max earner has for 1 season in the VHLE). What you actually want there IRL is to get the guys that are future career AHL/ECHL players. Because they will still be star players at the CHL level, but they will never get called up to a NHL team, so you get them for as many of their eligible seasons as you'd like (making the choice of if you want to keep them as an overager at 20 or yeet them at 19). So the key to long term success isn't to draft super stars, it's to draft players that are "good enough". In that way the VHLE almost perfectly mirrors reality.

 

This only really becomes a problem when you actively *want* your clickers to remain clickers, as long as you are still giving them every opportunity to do more and get more invested in the league, it's fine. But if you systematically start trying to get people to not do more, because it they did more you'd lose out on their 2nd season, then you have an actual problem. Also the IA rules for the E are not great, as they make someone going IA around 300-350 TPE more or less the best possible thing that can happen for the long term success of your team. That very much isn't right.