Rookie Pitfalls, and Ideally, If They Aren’t Obvious, How to Avoid Them.

[jacobcarson877 2,541]

As always whenever I see a Theme Week theme, I aim to try to skirt my way around it and take it from a different angle than I expect most would. This Week, in addition to my regular highlight of up and coming players that I hope will come out sooner in the week rather than later, I’ll be writing about:

Rookie Pitfalls, and Ideally, If They Aren’t Obvious, How to Avoid Them.

 

1.      Not logging in again. We see it all the time, players get created, the VHLM GMs rejoince, sometimes they even join a team, and then they’re never seen again. Whether they didn’t like it, or simply forgot it existed, they’re out a great experience, and we’re out a potentially terrific player. When I first joined I actually only stuck around because I joined n the evening, and then went to bed with it still open. Then I got hooked and left the tab open. Throw us on your bookmark tab!

 

2.      Second is getting overwhelmed, or completely underwhelmed by notifications, both on the forum and on Discord. Head https://vhlforum.com/notifications/options/ to manage which notifications show up in the bell icon, which you get a push notification for, and which go to your email. I only get an email when someone messages me for example, but I do send a lot of things to my notification list. Also, I have the auto-follow thread that I comment/post on setting turned on which I can’t remember how I did that. On Discord my rule is muted, but Only @mentions for most things, and then the most important channels in my most important servers get unmuted, but still Only @mentions. I used to get so overwhelmed by Discord messages and so I turned my notifications off for Discord entirely. And then I lost a ton of activity. It wasn’t until I figured out my Discord and forum notifications that I ever became active.

 

3.      Participating without engaging. And what do I mean by that? This is a forum-based simulation league, with a thriving Discord community attached to it. You could go entire careers without engaging with anyone. You could never post, never send a message on Discord. And even in a non-extreme case, in fact a pretty regular one, you could never post on the forum, and send one or two messages in Discord, and then just earn your TPE alone for the next couple of years. But I feel like then you’re missing 99% of the fun! Take some time to enjoy people’s content, take some time to talk to and get to know your teammates. Even if it’s only about the sims, celebrate the wins, and work to do better after the losses! Figure out those pesky notifications first, and then hang out with us!

 

4.      Not being willing to read. I know in this day and age things are presented to us in a very visually stimulating way, often very quickly and the context switched regularly. But here we slow that down even a little. Some of us are still fiending for more content all the time, and I’ve certainly been there, but the beauty is in taking your time, reading the New Player resources, and learning about what it takes to be a good player, and an even better member. Reading is even more important than creation in my opinion, as it becomes very hard to create without reading.

 

5.      Not asking questions. This is a very strange style of hobby, and even the other leagues in our niche do things very differently. It would be impossible for any member to know all of the things, and so why should we expect you, a new member to know even a large chunk of the things? You’re expected to have a million questions. I still have a million questions. But you deserve to get your answers, and you deserve to be educated on the things you need to be a good player, and once again, a greater member. And as we probably all heard in school, if you have a question, surely someone else has the same one and is too shy to ask. And even more importantly, we give a lot of jargon in our answers, if you don’t understand the answer, get clarification! Sometimes we forget to take ourselves out of our shoes and put ourselves in yours.

 

6.      Spreading your TPE evenly. There’s nothing that hurt more for me than seeing a new player join and then immediately spread their TPE evenly across all of the attributes. Not only are they not good at anything, they aren’t even actually increasing many stats, and usually only the ones we’ve determined to be the least useful, and so have a larger ratio in the Hybrid system. I won’t tell you how to build here, but I will tell you to not build anything until you’ve talked to a GM or read about what the attributes ACTUALLY are, and what they do. Just because something is called Wrist Shot, doesn’t mean it actually helps your wrist shots. Ask your GMs about the history of the Hybrid system, how it came to be, and what it means for us now!

 

7.      Overvaluing PTs. The 6-point Point task is the pinnacle of forum content creation. It is a testament to our dedication to the league and also a complete waste of energy and time for much of our user base. It is a cherry on top, not the foundation. When dealing with Capped TPE, up to 6 TPE comes from your choice of PT, Welfare, or Pension once you meet the requirements. If you choose a PT, you can fill all 6, Welfare is 4/6, and Pension is 5/6. So a PT and Welfare are only 2 TPE different. Regardless of which you pick, you still have access to the other 6 TPE, which are called the Supplemental TPE. These are the bread and butter of TPE earning. I encourage everyone to try a PT for each season’s Theme Week, and for your First Gen Doubles Store Purchase. But realistically, even then you’re not going to fall down the field if you never do a PT. Supplemental TPE is broken down into much more manageable chunks. Your GMs are dying to help you with Supplemental TPE.

 

8.      Getting too focused on the VHLM and VHLE, and not the end goal, the VHL. It’s well known that the VHLM is the place of all hype. Waivers coming in, lots of early career growth, and all of the novelty of a new career. For those who love quick validation, the VHLM is heaven. And the VHLE is the exact opposite. It is a small, tight, competitive league, where the focus goes away from novelty and onto consistency, and structure and foundations. It’s all about burning you in the fires to get you ready for what you came for, to play in the VHL. Often times people forget that, and decide to put their attention to being the best VHLM or VHLE player. But if you never move past the novelty, and through the fires, you never get to enjoy the product that we work so hard to perfect. Where building and TPE earning shine, where long term planning is king, and where an intense community ravishes over every season. Instead of every season being drastically different like it in in the minors, the VHL is all about more-realistic competitive windows, exciting moves and transactions, and trying to get to and sustain the highest level of play. It’s addictive, and exactly why I, and many others, choose to push ourselves through the VHLM and VHLE each career to GET to the VHL.

 

9.      Doing too much, too fast. Many of the greatest members, at least in magnitude of activity, have burned out in just a short time. They grow to resent the league, lose their interest and leave. Sometimes out of the blue, and sometimes with a long-winded apology to us, and most often themselves. I know I, and everyone else here will always push you to be better. But we don’t know you, we don’t know where you’re at. This can absolutely be a chore in the wrong context. I write an essay every week for fun. I don’t always even claim the TPE for it. My friends think I’m crazy, and even other members probably wonder why I’m doing this. I came close to burning out a few times, and I’ve watched it happen too many. So take it easy. Remember PTs aren’t the be-al-end-all of the league. You don’t have to log on every day. You can close Discord. Enjoy some time with your friends and family, and touch some grass please. Drink water, sleep well, and get some sunshine on your skin and eyes. It’s a simulation hockey league. Don’t burn out over this.

 

10. And for the sake of nice even numbers this will be my final pitfall. I’m sure I and others could brainstorm more, and are welcome to put them below, but the last one is going to be Not Questioning Things. We are nowhere close to a perfect system. There is a ton of miscommunication, there are a ton of bugs, poor wordings, bad intentions, faulty historical precedents, misleading language, conflicting rulings, lapses of judgement, lapses of enforcement, and overall oversights. If something seems weird, ask someone why that is. Maybe you’ll learn something, maybe there is no good answer. We don’t get better if no one calls us out. Be polite, be constructive, but complain, propose, and question about everything. Your ideas could be the catalyst for something new and great changing in the league, and we need your thoughts. You’re as much of a member as the rest of us, so own it. Your vote is as worthy as anyone else’s.

Edited August 26 by jacobcarson877