Searching for Motivation

[dstevensonjr 441]

Early on in your career as a player, it's expected that each season is going to be better for you statistically than the previous season as you grow your attributes. Sure, you see a step back in numbers as you move forward from the VHLM to the VHLE, and then onto the VHL. That can be expected as you play against players with higher point bases themselves, but you eventually grow into that group as well and continue to see your numbers rise.

 

What do you do when that stops? How do you deal with seeing your numbers plateau (or start to drop) and work to continue to improve? I think that's something that people struggle with, and part of the reason why some people prefer to not run their player all the way to the end of their career eligibility. In my opinion, it's easier to stay motivated when your improvements and work show up quickly, you can see your player grow over the course of a run of games rather than an entire season. It's much more difficult to watch as your work can only be applied incrementally, and your player doesn't make much improvement at all.

 

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Here's an example of what I mean:

 

Let's say that a typical week of earning is 15 TPE.

 

Player A has a current total TPE of 200. Player B has a current total TPE of 1000.

 

This week, Player A picks up the 15 TPE earned and moves to 215 total TPE. They've seen an increase in total TPE of 7.5% this week, and are likely able to apply that TPE directly into their attributes to improve them by 15 points at the cost of 1 TPE per attribute point below 70. 

 

Comparatively, Player B picks up the 15 TPE earned and moves to 1015 TPE. They've seen an increase in total TPE of 1.5% this week, but will likely only be able to improve their player by between 1-3 attribute points with the cost likely being between 5 and 10 TPE per attribute point.

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Now, this isn't a groundbreaking discovery or a complaint by any means, more just a current feel of futility knowing that the work each week can't make the difference that one would want it to make. It makes understanding the people who pull the chute on a player earlier than retirement age and focus on players that don't make it past the VHLE that much easier. I get why it would be appealing to be constantly improving, and then starting the cycle over again quickly. I think that the answer to the motivation question as a player ages points to discipline, and knowing that even though it's much more of a grind deeper into a players career, keeping up with the earning is still improving the player and it's still imperative to keep striving for more. The motivation also needs to come from looking at other top players in the league and wanting to keep pace with them, or outpace them to be better.

 

This has been my rambling for the week, thanks for reading.

[jacobcarson877 2,559]

I think the way that I do it, as someone who has had a very beefy build, a lot of which was not all that far off of a build 200TPA below it, just do to the nature of the cost spike, is to keep a constant plan for what the end goal is. That way instead of seeing it as a % increase, it's more of a % of the way there, which constantly increases. Even on a micro scale, it's hey I'm 1 week away from hitting an extra DF, or 6 weeks from hitting 95 DF or something.

 

But yeah it really does slow down a ton around 900, and that's where the real dedication comes in, and you have to really believe in the plan you've made over the last year or so heading into depreciation.