What the Hell, Player Store?

[Gustav 6,469]

tHe SyStEm dOeSn'T eNcOuRaGe YoU tO sTaY dOWn

 

iT's a TrAdE-oFf AnD yOu'Re GeTtiNg ExTrA sTaTs iF yOu Go Up

 

pEoPLe dOn'T sTaY dOwN tO aVoiD dEpReCiAtiOn

 

It's been a minute or two since I've aired out the laundry on this, but my strong opinions about the way depreciation works have not changed. I've always thought that it's absolutely ridiculous that top earners get to sit around in the E and "give up a season of numbers" (at a time when anyone who's been around for longer than 5 seconds knows that those numbers' contribution to a career will be fairly minimal in most cases) to completely avoid depreciating in their last season. To very quickly recap a manifesto that's been posted quite a few times:

 

• Point: the E was created to be played in and skipping it shouldn't be a regular thing.
  • Counterpoint: the E was created to address VHL roster overflow. A top earner in the draft should be in high demand on a VHL roster, especially during a time when a top earner can be around 500 TPE by the time the playoffs come up. It's outrageous to suggest that such a player belongs outside of the big league.
• Point: the E is a necessary evil and we'd be dealing with massive roster issues otherwise.
  • Counterpoint
• Point: there's nothing wrong with the current depreciation system, it doesn't provide any reward for staying in the E, and if you choose to go up and get hit with the huge one in your last season, a) that doesn't really matter and it was great that you did it, but, b) that's also what you get and you shouldn't have done that.
  • Sure.

 

I've done basically all of my complaining about the above with the belief that the system works a certain way. And, in fact, I can fairly say that there should have been no reason for me to believe otherwise, because this was something I know we've talked about behind the scenes and that I thought we agreed on.

 

Why isn't there a depreciation fighter for the 9th season?

 

If this league wants to pretend even a little bit that players who skip the E aren't human pieces of garbage who deserve to be depreciated into irrelevance, then maybe it shouldn't make that third hit entirely unfightable. I've always thought that there was an option for this and still hated the way it worked--so learning that there isn't and that it's even worse makes my opinion quite a bit stronger. Seriously, we're starting to run out of arguments for "guys, it's actually a fair choice you can make between two pretty cool options," especially when every blue hasn't missed TPE in who knows how long and not one of them skipped the E. You're seriously avoiding an otherwise completely unavoidable 300-some TPE hit at the end of your career by changing nothing about your earning and probably not sacrificing a whole lot of rookie season numbers. I can tell you firsthand that "has 44 more points and one more full season played" isn't really a good thing in HoF voting, and even that assumes that all the other numbers would be exactly the same when you give yourself 300 more TPE to work with.

 

I'll let you think about that for a bit. I'd like to hear one person who legitimately wants to play up under current circumstances for reasons other than not wanting to be in the E. Meanwhile, the reasons for staying down are all over the place, and for those active enough that they shouldn't need to, all of those reasons are performance-incentivized. It's absolutely laughable that I'll inevitably get people telling me here that there's nothing wrong with that, or even that the scenario I'm describing doesn't exist in the first place.

 

Constructive feedback? If you're going to make those of us who want to do what the development leagues are supposed to do in the first place pay a penalty, at least give us an option to mitigate it. I'll admit that a lot of this article is ragebait, but there's something in here I'm advocating for that I seriously think could help the league out.

[Beketov 9,102]

4 hours ago, Gustav said:

I've always thought that there was an option for this and still hated the way it worked--so learning that there isn't and that it's even worse makes my opinion quite a bit stronger.

Initially we wanted the hit heavy so we didn’t add a fighter. Making the hits stronger and still not adding one though may have swung the pendulum too far the other way.

 

4 hours ago, Gustav said:

especially when every blue hasn't missed TPE in who knows how long and not one of them skipped the E

To be fair I can’t speak for the others but I’m garbage at getting uncapped so “hasn’t missed TPE” is just the capped stuff, that’s actually a lot less than most. I also did have the opportunity to skip it and could have but chose to stay down not because it avoided any depreciation hit or whatever but because I wanted an experience I had never had in the VHL, something that is quite rare after 15 years. It may be shocking but not every decision is entirely TPE based.

[jacobcarson877 2,563]

I guess I never really looked at it this way. I always assumed the status quo was following progression as normal, and the changed state was that you could now skip this status quo at the cost of a bunch of TPE. Maybe its a glass half full mindset, but I've never had any intention of skipping the E, especially not for a 20 point season.

But also I wouldn't mind another fighter, the added benefit would be outweighed by spending limited cash resources. One should get 8 real seasons of competitiveness, and if they want to spend more depreciation and a bunch more money to put themselves up another couple points, go for it.

[Gustav 6,469]

11 hours ago, Beketov said:

It may be shocking but not every decision is entirely TPE based.

 

 

9 hours ago, jacobcarson877 said:

Maybe its a glass half full mindset, but I've never had any intention of skipping the E, especially not for a 20 point season.

 

I think these are fair statements and you can choose to play in the E for any reason you want. I just also think that any argument that skipping it will get you more career success was already really lacking in credibility and keeps losing what it had as one looks into the details. Neither of you is doing this but I would say it’s completely baseless to argue that a top draft pick isn’t raising their ceiling by staying down, and that this isn’t really appealing to lots of top draft picks. 
 

In theory, it should be fine, shouldn’t it? I’d love a world where going up doesn’t effectively forfeit two seasons of hard work. I think the logistics of working this out on a broader scale are a separate discussion, but I hope a “make your last depreciation not as bad” purchase isn’t seen as a bad idea. 

[scoop 3,447]

12 hours ago, Beketov said:

Initially we wanted the hit heavy so we didn’t add a fighter. Making the hits stronger and still not adding one though may have swung the pendulum too far the other way.

Take this philosophy and apply it to allowing players to stick around for as long as they can until they are literally depreciated out of existence.

 

 

12 hours ago, Beketov said:

To be fair I can’t speak for the others but I’m garbage at getting uncapped so “hasn’t missed TPE” is just the capped stuff, that’s actually a lot less than most. I also did have the opportunity to skip it and could have but chose to stay down not because it avoided any depreciation hit or whatever but because I wanted an experience I had never had in the VHL, something that is quite rare after 15 years. It may be shocking but not every decision is entirely TPE based.

This is actually why I did skip the VHLE. Well, I guess I actually skipped the VHLM, because I played my pre-draft season in the VHLE. I wanted to experience going nine seasons with a player, even though I do think it is definitely the worse option.

[scoop 3,447]

17 hours ago, Gustav said:

If this league wants to pretend even a little bit that players who skip the E aren't human pieces of garbage who deserve to be depreciated into irrelevance, then maybe it shouldn't make that third hit entirely unfightable.

Preach! (It's actually a fourth hit of depreciation, though.

[Spartan 4,531]

You can buy a Jagr for the fourth hit FYI 

[Beketov 9,102]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

You can buy a Jagr for the fourth hit FYI 

I assume he meant there’s no specific fighter like there is for 7 and 8.

[Spartan 4,531]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

I assume he meant there’s no specific fighter like there is for 7 and 8.

He said "entirely unfightable" so just wanted to make sure the Jagr option was known.

 

20 hours ago, Gustav said:

I'd like to hear one person who legitimately wants to play up under current circumstances for reasons other than not wanting to be in the E. Meanwhile, the reasons for staying down are all over the place, and for those active enough that they shouldn't need to, all of those reasons are performance-incentivized. It's absolutely laughable that I'll inevitably get people telling me here that there's nothing wrong with that, or even that the scenario I'm describing doesn't exist in the first place.

Realistically I still think that playing a 9th season is just to have an extra shot at winning a cup. I don't think there's any bonus award value in that rookie season since you'll almost certainly be lower TPA than folks who stay down in the E from the prior class. You'll definitely peak over 1100 TPA which is good enough to be in award contention as long as your team situation/surroundings are ideal and beneficial. So I don't think there's really that much tradeoff in terms of performance, it's really just your peak TPA (eg. 1150 peak vs 1250 peak).

 

This go around I'm a goalie so I obviously won't play 9 seasons, I don't think there's any case to be made that I'll agree with that a max earning goalie *should* go directly to the VHL in his draft season. You won't be a starter unless you're on a completely garbage team, in which case you're ruining your career stats. But I figure this post is mostly for skaters. Bottom line is right that you're not significantly raising a bid at the HoF by playing 9 seasons unless your rookie season gets lucky.

 

That being said I still don't really think that staying down in the E is a bad thing. Some people will be self-motivated to play an extra VHL season like I was to have an extra shot at a cup (rip me), or to hope they get lucky and start their career hot. It's all luck at the end of the day. It's just a mostly safer path to stick to the expected career progression line of 1 season in the E before going up and enjoying a normal 8 season VHL career. The E also isn't a development league so I don't see the logic in saying that it's breaking the league flow or whatever. Real issue just seems to be the continued lack of interest and engagement in the E which still doesn't have a solid identity, which in turn makes these arguments pop up that just want to avoid the E entirely.

 

Imo raising the "standard" to 9 by mitigating that last 9th season depreciation seems like a mistake since at our current recruitment pace, I can't see the E still around in 5-10 seasons (generous projection). Just because a 9th season option was added because of the addition of the E doesn't mean everyone who max earns should always be taking that option. 

 

At the end of the day from a personal standpoint as a max earner, I don't really care if the 9th season is easy or not. My decisions will usually just be based on my players and the situations where I get drafted, or how much preparation I want to put in. I had Nico planned pretty well to manage 9 seasons, while Syko won't be as thought out as a goalie under the old attributes and %'s. This player would have gone through the E no matter what to get the new experience of the E that I hadn't gotten with Nico due to skipping.

[Gustav 6,469]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

Imo raising the "standard" to 9 by mitigating that last 9th season depreciation seems like a mistake since at our current recruitment pace, I can't see the E still around in 5-10 seasons (generous projection).

 

I mean I hope you realize that I'd consider this a much better outcome than adding an extra player store option 

 

We already don't *need* it anymore, so if we're avoiding making changes to account for it disappearing, then why not just make it disappear?

[Spartan 4,531]

2 minutes ago, Gustav said:

 

I mean I hope you realize that I'd consider this a much better outcome than adding an extra player store option 

 

We already don't *need* it anymore, so if we're avoiding making changes to account for it disappearing, then why not just make it disappear?

 I know it's the desired outcome, just think it's still usable as a league right now. And me saying that about making 9 seasons the norm wasn't the league stance, just my personal opinion. Pretty sure the league stance is still "8 seasons is the standard, 9 is for those who want the extra challenge," which I don't really disagree with. I don't think that just because 9 seasons is possible means that it should become the new norm.