From Welfare hockey league to whatever the V means hockey league.

[jRuutu 2,464]

Welfare players and inactive players should have no business in making the top-6, top-4, or starting G roles in any league, anywhere. The only time welfare or inactive player should be playing in those roles is if there is nobody else. Literally nobody else is available.  Hello, my name is jRuutu, today I am going back to the classics as I talk about the welfare and inactive players. 

 

The article "Extend the M, Abolish the E" by Grape has been rather active lately, multiple comments from various users. The main point in Grape's article is to counter the lack of players and open tanking of VHLM teams by removing E, which would result in more players in VHLM, and less tanking. On the surface that sounds reasonable and smart, but when we take into consideration the overall quality of general managers in these leagues, we should focus on the real issue instead, welfare players are too good. If the E is removed and VHLM is one big league with loads of players, it is the LC's or lazy clickers that will take all the top-6, top-4 and starting roles. Meanwhile, the newer active players remain in the depth roles purely because the LC's or lazy clickers happened to join few months earlier.

 

Any reasonable person would assume the general managers understands to put the active players in bigger roles still, but that is simply not true. We have numerous examples of users in VHL that will do whatever it takes to win. The VHLM general managers will put the LC's or lazy clickers into the bigger roles as they look for glory and wins. The VHLM general managers can not be trusted. That is why I believe the correct approach to tackle the situation mentioned in the Grape's article is to make welfare earners clearly weaker, either by reducing welfare from 4 to 2 or from 5 to 2, OR increasing the value of every point tasks by 2 points.  That way the welfare players would be clearly weaker and whatever problem the leagues have does not matter as my player is clearly better than any LC or lazy clicker.

 

 

[jacobcarson877 2,527]

I think I fall as someone who is pro-VHLE and also pro-welfare player while also agreeing that the welfare program is now too strong for the hybrid era. We should not limit membership to only people willing to give their lives to the VHL, because that isn't everyone's priority in life, it's literally a hobby. But, considering how easy it is to show up, click welfare and PF, ask for some trivia answers and write a few maybe sentence long answers and get 2/3 the TPE of a capped TPE player, it makes it difficult to really reward players for creating good forum content. Given that our TPE is roughly half as valuable as it was before the hybrid era, the difference between 6-8TPE and 12TPE is very small, especially since uncapped TPE opportunities continue to be squashed. I am a firm believer that you should get out what you put into something, and so I agree that the most active, and the best-earning players should have higher roles on the team, and as a VHLM GM especially that is what I aim to do. This isn't really something that can be ENFORCED, and therefore no rule change really affects this, but flooding the VHLM with 400 TPE players, active or not, only makes the 30TPE players look and feel even worse than they already do against 200TPE players. The VHLE serves as a natural resting place for those who don't earn that well, and really only doesn't work for those who earn well. Hence the new 300 Call-Up rule.

I am pro-nerfing Welfare, out of respect for my forum content creators, and I think 2 Welfare, 3 Pension works well. This means a maxing welfare earner gets 8 capped, and I would propose a maxing pension could get 9. This still rewards our veteran members, leaves us with nice clean numbers and rewards those who are doing PT. Welfare players would naturally settle into depth roles, earning less TPE and would peak in the VHLE, not affecting our top earners at all, as they would be called up at 300. Making the VHL then becomes a privilige, not a right, but all players get to play in a league suited to their earnings.

[Nykonax 1,563]

1 hour ago, jacobcarson877 said:

I think I fall as someone who is pro-VHLE and also pro-welfare player while also agreeing that the welfare program is now too strong for the hybrid era

Really? I feel like Welfare is in a good spot right now. I think pre-hybrid it was a little too strong, especially with meta. Now, as a pension-earner myself, with the hybrid attributes it feels like I'm almost capped at about 700/800 TPA. With how the ratio's work, once you get to 80 or so in a stat it starts costing like a week's worth of pension to just get ~0.3 STHS attributes, which honestly feels really bad. Now this is just my experience, and I don't really claim things like press conferences or reviewing, so people can certainly get more TPE. But as a welfare player it feels like I can make a solid team player, I won't be outstanding, but I also won't be terrible, which I think is really healthy. If you look at the top 10 points leaders last season a majority of them were max earners, and only 1 I think could be classified as welfare. Same for S83. The top players are majority composed of max earners, so their work isn't really being devalued.

 

I think the argument can be different for the M, but GM's should be playing max earning players over welfare players anyways, and that's a GM standards discussion not really a welfare one.

 

[AJW 2,156]

Keep welfare at 4! I am too lazy to do a point task lmao

[Grape 676]

I feel that the issue of nerfing welfare, especially to the point in which a clicker player likely doesn't ever break into the VHL, is it will discourage new players. When someone jumps in, learning the ropes, a lot of times they'll default to welfare, at least in the beginning. New players should be encouraged to maintain engagement with the league, and sometimes that takes a while to get comfortable with. Chopping down welfare will just make them sit at the same sorta sucky level longer and they might think "hey, this dude isn't really getting any better. Everyone around him gets so much better. What's the point of growing this guy if he isn't gonna turn into anything?" It also doesn't help that the seasons take a very long time to conclude, and that time investment plays a pretty big part. Welfare has to be rewarding enough to keep those without much time invested in the league but not so strong that it makes them as good as players that actually claim.

[diacope 1,696]

5 minutes ago, Grape said:

I feel that the issue of nerfing welfare, especially to the point in which a clicker player likely doesn't ever break into the VHL, is it will discourage new players. When someone jumps in, learning the ropes, a lot of times they'll default to welfare, at least in the beginning. New players should be encouraged to maintain engagement with the league, and sometimes that takes a while to get comfortable with. Chopping down welfare will just make them sit at the same sorta sucky level longer and they might think "hey, this dude isn't really getting any better. Everyone around him gets so much better. What's the point of growing this guy if he isn't gonna turn into anything?" It also doesn't help that the seasons take a very long time to conclude, and that time investment plays a pretty big part. Welfare has to be rewarding enough to keep those without much time invested in the league but not so strong that it makes them as good as players that actually claim.

 

Jason Coiner, started at 30 TPE and 4/5 seasons left?

Edited September 13, 2022 by lil OG z

[jacobcarson877 2,527]

1 hour ago, Nykonax said:

With how the ratio's work, once you get to 80 or so in a stat it starts costing like a week's worth of pension to just get ~0.3 STHS attributes, which honestly feels really bad.

I think this statement is actually exactly why I said what I said, and its useful to think about from both sides. As someone who earns every morsel of TPE possible, I am also spending a week's worth of TPE to sim-wise at least, achieve nothing. And maybe that's all it boils down to for me, is that my player has reached that point where if I'm lucky and all the decimals are just right for me I can increase 2 attribute points in a week. Usually it's 0-1. If careers were longer and we were looking at like 15 season careers then maybe the difference would feel more substantial, but as is, it doesn't exactly feel like anyone is increasing at any rate that makes them significantly better than anyone else. Those 650-950 peak players are all roughly the same strength, and it takes being a freak of nature to become a sustainable star in the VHL. I really do think those who have done their time and maybe don't have the time/drive/whatever anymore to max earn anymore should still be able to enjoy the thing they love without feeling guilty about not pumping out content or balancing 7 jobs anymore to do it. Maybe 3 isn't the number, maybe it stays at 5 i don't know but I think a lot of people miss feeling like we can be good again? There has to be some sort of middle ground between everyone scoring 100 points and whatever we have now. (maybe i'm just salty my player sucks right now? who knows, but glad we can discuss it)

[jacobcarson877 2,527]

1 hour ago, Grape said:

New players should be encouraged to maintain engagement with the league, and sometimes that takes a while to get comfortable with. Chopping down welfare will just make them sit at the same sorta sucky level longer and they might think "hey, this dude isn't really getting any better. Everyone around him gets so much better. What's the point of growing this guy if he isn't gonna turn into anything?"

Definitely an important point. I think that this could definitely happen, and likely already does happen. For anyone who doesn't know, I spent my entire first player on welfare, and the occasional press conference and trivia. I was a goalie, and so as a welfare goalie I didn't get a lot of playing time. This was pre-hybrid era and pre-VHLE, during the S75 boom. I think why I did what I did, beyond just being nervous to post, was that I was fine being a depth player, much like Nyko said earlier in the thread, and so earning half as much as everyone else was fine, I wasn't super invested and I just wanted to see how it went. I got to 687 TPE I believe. 

 

Now, as a VHLM GM, and a TPE addict, I get to watch first-hand how players grow and how they develop. One philosophy I have carried with me since I first heard it a couple years ago is this:

"A game encourages, that which it rewards"

 

Obviously not everyone can/should be a star in this league. We tried that one, no one had fun. But now we have this mass of players that I'd put in the 650-950 TPE range that all just feel "okay". A semi-consistent welfare earner like myself back in the day would have peaked at roughly "okay", meanwhile a lot of players submitting PTs and that will also end up being "okay". If our goal is forum content and community, then we need to reward those who contribute to it, at a significantly higher standard than those who don't. Welfare is great for getting people into the VHL, I think it is amazing. But should we not be encouraging people to want to earn better? Should we not want people to feel as though if they just do this little press conference they'll be able to compete with their peers? So many people have complained about IA bloat this week, and gustav said something somewhere about recruitment's job being not necessarily to increase our community's size, but to maintain it.

 

My goal as a VHLM GM is to encourage my players to earn to the best of their ability without burning out, and contribute to our community. They shouldn't have to spend the first 3-4 seasons of their careers fighting to be any better than the average welfare earner in order to have fun. And welfare earners should feel pressure to better their player and contribute more to the forum, because as most of us know, that is the most rewarding part of the VHL.

 

I want to see those being active members in our community rewarded at a high enough rate that they feel as though their efforts were worth it when it comes to sim time. Whether that is a cap boost, or a welfare nerf, or a second look at the TPE Scale, I don't know but you're right there is a huge lump of active earners wading through IAs and welfare players that likely feel discouraged.

 

As a final note, I want to flip the quoted section back on you, not in an aggressive way or anything, because I think you're correct, but the opposite is also true at least in my opinion.

"hey, this dude isn't really getting any better. Everyone around him is just as good as I am. What's the point of earning if this guy isn't going to turn into anything special?"

Thanks for the post you made earlier and the comment here in this thread, I think they're important conversations to have regardless of how we stand on them.

[Nykonax 1,563]

18 minutes ago, jacobcarson877 said:

hose 650-950 peak players are all roughly the same strength, and it takes being a freak of nature to become a sustainable star in the VHL.

I mean yea I agree. It just seems like all the top players are the people who break out of that 700-900 threshold and reach 11/12/1300 TPA. Which I think is very fair and why things are in a good place right now. Welfare allows you to build a reasonably good player, and max earning allows you to build a superstar, which IMO is the way things should be. It's just the worst for people who are above welfare but below absolute max earning, since they can't consistently beat the welfare players but still consistently get beat by the max earners. I don't really know how you'd fix this without nerfing welfare, and I think welfare itself is really healthy right now.

[Garsh 1,189]

1 hour ago, jacobcarson877 said:

I want to see those being active members in our community rewarded at a high enough rate that they feel as though their efforts were worth it when it comes to sim time.

 

I want to niitpick one thing here.  You are saying active members of the community, but activity <> tasks that award TPE.  I would say I'm decently active in discord (less so in the main discord than i used to be, but active in LRs and such), but that doesn't give me TPE, but I would argue I'm an active member of the community.

 

Also we have yet to see any regression changes since Hybrid started.  I would imagine a more aggressive regression for skaters would impact the relative strengths of people earning different amounts.  I have no idea if that is planned for some point but I imagine it's at least being considered.

[jacobcarson877 2,527]

9 minutes ago, Garsh said:

I want to niitpick one thing here.  You are saying active members of the community, but activity <> tasks that award TPE.  I would say I'm decently active in discord (less so in the main discord than i used to be, but active in LRs and such), but that doesn't give me TPE, but I would argue I'm an active member of the community.

Very valid nitpick. It is definitely incredibly important that our character members feel as though there is something worth coming to the site for sim-wise. Ideally that's the niche pension fills? Obviously people can just be having a good ol time before finishing 2 careers (if i remember correctly its 2 700+ careers? Which is roughly 2 welfare+ careers by my math?) and I really have no answer for that that fits my philosophy so points off there for me.

[Enorama 2,038]

6 hours ago, jacobcarson877 said:

and I think 2 Welfare, 3 Pension works well.

 

Exactly what I have been touting forever. @Victor can attest to this. 

[Dom 1,445]

34 minutes ago, Garsh said:

I want to niitpick one thing here.  You are saying active members of the community, but activity <> tasks that award TPE.  I would say I'm decently active in discord (less so in the main discord than i used to be, but active in LRs and such), but that doesn't give me TPE, but I would argue I'm an active member of the community

Exactly my thought, we have a lot of those "clickers" that are very active in the locker room. I can guarantee that GMs from every teams had those players at some point and I don’t think they deserve to be punished.

[Grape 676]

2 hours ago, jacobcarson877 said:

Definitely an important point. I think that this could definitely happen, and likely already does happen. For anyone who doesn't know, I spent my entire first player on welfare, and the occasional press conference and trivia. I was a goalie, and so as a welfare goalie I didn't get a lot of playing time. This was pre-hybrid era and pre-VHLE, during the S75 boom. I think why I did what I did, beyond just being nervous to post, was that I was fine being a depth player, much like Nyko said earlier in the thread, and so earning half as much as everyone else was fine, I wasn't super invested and I just wanted to see how it went. I got to 687 TPE I believe. 

 

Now, as a VHLM GM, and a TPE addict, I get to watch first-hand how players grow and how they develop. One philosophy I have carried with me since I first heard it a couple years ago is this:

"A game encourages, that which it rewards"

 

Obviously not everyone can/should be a star in this league. We tried that one, no one had fun. But now we have this mass of players that I'd put in the 650-950 TPE range that all just feel "okay". A semi-consistent welfare earner like myself back in the day would have peaked at roughly "okay", meanwhile a lot of players submitting PTs and that will also end up being "okay". If our goal is forum content and community, then we need to reward those who contribute to it, at a significantly higher standard than those who don't. Welfare is great for getting people into the VHL, I think it is amazing. But should we not be encouraging people to want to earn better? Should we not want people to feel as though if they just do this little press conference they'll be able to compete with their peers? So many people have complained about IA bloat this week, and gustav said something somewhere about recruitment's job being not necessarily to increase our community's size, but to maintain it.

 

My goal as a VHLM GM is to encourage my players to earn to the best of their ability without burning out, and contribute to our community. They shouldn't have to spend the first 3-4 seasons of their careers fighting to be any better than the average welfare earner in order to have fun. And welfare earners should feel pressure to better their player and contribute more to the forum, because as most of us know, that is the most rewarding part of the VHL.

 

I want to see those being active members in our community rewarded at a high enough rate that they feel as though their efforts were worth it when it comes to sim time. Whether that is a cap boost, or a welfare nerf, or a second look at the TPE Scale, I don't know but you're right there is a huge lump of active earners wading through IAs and welfare players that likely feel discouraged.

 

As a final note, I want to flip the quoted section back on you, not in an aggressive way or anything, because I think you're correct, but the opposite is also true at least in my opinion.

"hey, this dude isn't really getting any better. Everyone around him is just as good as I am. What's the point of earning if this guy isn't going to turn into anything special?"

Thanks for the post you made earlier and the comment here in this thread, I think they're important conversations to have regardless of how we stand on them.

While I do think the VHL as a whole would benefit from a welfare nerf, the first and second priority of this league, in my opinion, is recruitment and retention, and making it so those getting into it, possibly those that don't have enough time to really dedicate to consistent PTs, have a harder time to see their player succeed is going to hurt those priorities. Though, it does tie into the point of my original post. The way we can maintain new members while nerfing welfare and promoting PTs is through a good community. If a team has a fun, engaging community, new people are gonna be motivated to try and stick around as best they can. While some teams have that community, other teams struggle with it, somewhat due to the people in that community, but a lot with quantity. The best way to make a welfare nerf work is by first de-popularizing the Boom bust cycle in the M and promote depth and consistent competitiveness. A full team is a fun team, and a fun team keeps players coming back.

[Gaikoku-hito 2,076]

53 minutes ago, Dom said:

Exactly my thought, we have a lot of those "clickers" that are very active in the locker room. I can guarantee that GMs from every teams had those players at some point and I don’t think they deserve to be punished.

I don`t think anyone is looking to punish Welfare players I think what everyone is trying to state is we would like to encourage them to earn more TPE and earn their roles within the league/rosters. This is where I agree but I am also torn since I everyone has a right to play the game the way that they want so then it means we as community/league need to determine how we view the league roles. 

 

What does a All-star player look like?

What does a Second line player look like?

What is a depth option player look like? Etc....

 

This is very similar talk that I seen before the VHLE was created and someone much smart then I am was throwing around different player builds and how they fit within the current three league structure but has hybrid really changed that? Or is this a situation where maybe the VHLE has changed this in a unexpected way? I don`t know those answers and really don`t have time to dive too deeply into them.

 

But I agree welfare is a bit too close to max earner now depending on what want you classify as a welfare player.

Quick example:

VHLM player earns:

Max: 14 TPE

Welfare + (Task): 12 TPE

Welfare only: 6 TPE

 

So at the end of the day is it worth earning the extra 2 TPE by writing a huge article of 500 plus words? Making super cool graphic? Podcast for X amount a mintues talking about the league? This all takes effort yet at a click of a button and completing the simple tasks I can earn only 2 less TPE!! Yeah, Sign me up!!

 

While we focus on the Max earners, welfare plus and welfare players I think the real difference between the players is the uncappped TPE. When you look at my player: Pierre Emile Bouchard it is the uncapped TPE that is keeping him at or near the top of his class as he is earned (dam it I have up dated my spread sheet I be back) 160 uncapped TPE above expected for a max earning player. What I am trying to say is the fact that we are not really talking about Max earners, Welfare plus and welfare players as we are missing the fact that most max earner are actually more then max earners as we also have a ton of extra uncapped TPE, if we are lucky flowing into our builds. So if you really look at it closer then a max earner and welfare plus player has almost nothing between them in the way of earning TPE as the difference is 2 TPE per week or 20 TPE per season or 160 TPE per Career. Is this too closer together for the effort of actually doing a PT to earn the extra 2 TPE? I don`t currently think so but I am simply addicted to earning the extra TPE be it capped or uncapped.

 

We need to figure out away to create a bigger divide between the Max earners versus Welfare plus as straight welfare I feel is actually in the happy place at the moment but still might need to be encourage to earn more.

More numbers I guess:

Max Earner = 14 TPE = 140 TPE (per season) = 1120 TPE (Max Career) 

Welfare Plus = 12 TPE = 120 TPE = 960 TPE (160 TPE difference)

Welfare = 6 TPE = 60 TPE = 480 TPE ( 640 TPE to 480 TPE Difference)

 

Okay, so looking at the differences I suggest that we either boost the earning ability of the Max earner so that a Welfare plus is half of a max earner or reduce the TPE that the welfare plus members can actaully earn to around half of that of a max earner. How? i don`t know!! LOL!!

 

But I can suggest making TP worth a lot more then 6TPE and bring Welfare down a bit as well but what numbers make sense is the bigger question.

 

Okay, So lets say we leave max earner alone at 14 TPE then what does a welfare plus member look like?

10 TPE? (also somehow I thought this was already the case but could find an answer)(Lazy!!) I think that would be fair so we have gaps of 4 TPE between the all the groups so that means the numbers change to:

Max Earner = 14 TPE = 140 TPE (per season) = 1120 TPE (Max Career) 

Welfare Plus = 10 TPE = 100 TPE = 800 TPE (320 TPE difference)

??? Welfare = 6 TPE = 60 TPE = 480 TPE (640 TPE to 320 TPE Difference)

This doesn`t work since I didn`t change the pay-out for welfare and cannot change the pay-out for welfare since it would only effect the bottom tier as they are straight welfare earners but that means removing SPT that can be completed and I think that would be too much work for the updaters unless it locks some way in the portal.

 

So the solution looks more likely to increase the TP pay-out to create a larger gap mean a TP would need to increase from 6 TPE to 10 TPE to keep the 320 TPE difference between the three groups as follows:

Max Earner = 18 TPE = 180 TPE (per season) = 1440 TPE (Max Career) 

Welfare Plus = 12 TPE = 120 TPE = 960 TPE (320 TPE difference)

Welfare = 6 TPE = 60 TPE = 480 TPE (640 TPE to 320 TPE Difference)

 

This mean sadly most TPE records would be blow-up as stated above Max earner are more then Max earner when we look at the uncapped aspect of the Max earners using my player average since I created him he earner an extra 20 Uncapped TPE per season so 200 TPE per season meaning we are looking at 1600+ players becoming more the norm rather then most struggling to reach 1500+ TPE. But is this what everyone wants? Increased gaps between those that put the effort into earning the extra TPE?

 

I am actually for it but that is because I have never been a welfare player!!

And thank you for taking the time to read my novel and this is more then 500+ words so can I claim this? LOL!!

[Daniel Janser 2,165]

10 hours ago, Garsh said:

Also we have yet to see any regression changes since Hybrid started.  I would imagine a more aggressive regression for skaters would impact the relative strengths of people earning different amounts.  I have no idea if that is planned for some point but I imagine it's at least being considered.

 

Why a harder regression for skaters? Have you looked at the elite saving numbers netminders put up recently (and I am not only speaking of max earners but also less competitive members)? Goalkeepers have not been hit by the hybrid hammer which overnight cut skaters into half (so to speak) and put up save percentages a NHL GM would get wet dreams about. Fair enough they suffered enough during the meta era. Having said that if now the plan would be to further cripple skaters and leave the goalies untouched, we will have an even bigger goalie surge than we already have. Because goalies atm get 1 STHS attribute per TPE whereas skaters are somewhere between 0.3 and .84, depending on what attributes you choose to push. 

 

Potential Result: 'cool the (enter the VHLM team of your choice) has just contracted its 8th netminder this season. the roster looks as follows now 2-1-8. Welcome, (enter generic player name), you are back up number seven and we are happy you signed with us. You can expect a maximum of 10 regular season games in a 72 games season. I hope you will have a lot of fun with the (enter team name) and much success in your pursuit of an VHL career.'

Edited September 14, 2022 by Daniel Janser

[Garsh 1,189]

12 hours ago, Daniel Janser said:

 

Why a harder regression for skaters? Have you looked at the elite saving numbers netminders put up recently (and I am not only speaking of max earners but also less competitive members)? Goalkeepers have not been hit by the hybrid hammer which overnight cut skaters into half (so to speak) and put up save percentages a NHL GM would get wet dreams about. Fair enough they suffered enough during the meta era. Having said that if now the plan would be to further cripple skaters and leave the goalies untouched, we will have an even bigger goalie surge than we already have. Because goalies atm get 1 STHS attribute per TPE whereas skaters are somewhere between 0.3 and .84, depending on what attributes you choose to push. 

 

Potential Result: 'cool the (enter the VHLM team of your choice) has just contracted its 8th netminder this season. the roster looks as follows now 2-1-8. Welcome, (enter generic player name), you are back up number seven and we are happy you signed with us. You can expect a maximum of 10 regular season games in a 72 games season. I hope you will have a lot of fun with the (enter team name) and much success in your pursuit of an VHL career.'

 

I'm assuming they will go harder on regression for skaters because based on my experience and comments from others it's not doing much now, compared to how much it used to do.  I am assuming that they want it to be meaningful like it used to be. But I could absolutely be wrong.  There could be other changes too, I'm not suggesting it's happening tomorrow or before any changes are made to goalies, just that it will happen.