Claimed: What's going on with VHLM? Part 4. Suggestions please?

[hedgehog337 3,480]

 

*come one guys, we shouldn't have kind of these emotions from the VHLM*

 

 

Seems like the VHL league is slowly waking up from hibernation thanks to some deadline deals. And with ''deals'' I wasn't talking about trades. Moreso, these deals are heavily related to our beloved league, the VHLM. Somehow this league started to generate some hype...unfortunately in a bad way. First of all, @eaglesfan036 decided call up Journeyman to his Calgary Wranglers team. It was ok though; after all, it's his player and he's doing what he wants with his player. It was ok, before we saw a true bomb: @Smarch called up Peter Quill from the Oslo Storm team, which generated a lot of talks: @The Trollfecta accused Smarch of screwing the VHLM, @Bushitroll wasn't happy as well as his team took a hit and the others were defending @Green and the Davos GM. It was an interesting read and what's more important, the talks are still in. Maybe this will make the end of this season more exciting, I don't know.

 

But something indeed is happening with the VHLM. Some people aren't happy with this league and they want to be called up instead. Even losing some TPE from the Achievement Tracker isn't a reason why they should stay in minors. Also, I'm seeing that people are getting bored of VHLM (from LR talks) which is concerning. Getting more TPE is great, but is it that great if you're not having fun in that league? And my poll on my last article is showing to us that not all members are fond of the VHL's younger brother.

 

But hey, we can't complain about it every time, isn't it? How about making some suggestions instead? The people are arguing about the minors, but I'm not sure if I saw someone trying to help the VHLM and their commishes in @Frank and @Banackock and the whole blue team. I'm not the best guy with making suggestions, but I'll make a try anyway.

 

 

*More recruitment;

*Encourage GM's to make rookies more involved into this league. Like having an active LR, because quiet LR is giving VHLM a bad name. I don't throwing shades at the current VHLM GM's and probably all 5 teams are having 300-400 posts already, I'm just saying they should be motvated to make things more exciting. And I'm not talking only about the LR.

*More recruitment;

*Handing more TPE to VHLM'ers. And don't even talk about some TPE inflation thing - even passing 900-1000 TPE isn't an easy task to do. So the VHLM is supposed to be a developmental league? So let it be a developmental league. The juniors need to have a feeling that they're not too far from the VHL league as the careers are short here anyway, so sitting for more 1-2 seasons in minors could make bad things to a career.

*More recruitement;

*From LR talks again: if the undrafted (yet) player doesn't want to play in the VHLM, put him through VHL waivers to be picked by any team. Then he goes to the draft. What about TPE? Well, we can create a so-called ''Waiver Achievement Tracker'' to not leaving a rookie player with nothing;

*More recruitement.

* @Higgins needs to drastically change the sim settings in favor of the offense to make it more fun. And make some fix in the Achievement Tracker for goalies and defence to not having things fucked up for them*

*More recruitement.

 

 

Probably these suggestions aren't really useful, but perhaps it could make some members to make their proposals.

 

 

That's it and I'm out.

 

6 TPE goes to Krīgars.

[eaglesfan036 4,593]

I called up journeyman to reach the cap floor without any hassle. I still have the process playing in the vhlm

[Corco 1,162]

-VHL needs to retain newer members better

-If people think the VHLM is boring, what will removing it and putting players directly into the VHL upon creation do? You'll be getting demolished by 500+TPE superstars. Even if you get say, 175 TPE at creation, you're still not really going to put up any kind of impressive stats. 

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Do think it's a fair argument that we have to look at ways to increase scoring again in the minors.

[TurnDaddy 323]

If you increase scoring to make the VHLM "fun", would that in turn create a lack of desire for players to create Defenseman because they might not see the same stats as a forward/center would, and/or their shots blocked, hits suffer to get their achievement tracker tpe?

 

Or would that in turn help defenseman scoring too and could get them their TPE via offensive stats?

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

4 minutes ago, Jonessee27 said:

If you increase scoring to make the VHLM "fun", would that in turn create a lack of desire for players to create Defenseman because they might not see the same stats as a forward/center would, and/or their shots blocked, hits suffer to get their achievement tracker tpe?

 

Or would that in turn help defenseman scoring too and could get them their TPE via offensive stats?

 

More shots = more points and more shots blocked.

 

The real losers are goalies.

[Devise 4,475]

37 minutes ago, Corco said:

If people think the VHLM is boring, what will removing it and putting players directly into the VHL upon creation do? You'll be getting demolished by 500+TPE superstars. Even if you get say, 175 TPE at creation, you're still not really going to put up any kind of impressive stats

 

The real issue isn't just stats though. A person could get 400 points in the VHLM. Even as a new member they will probably recognize that is meaningless. It servers zero indication of how their real career will go, and since the VHL has maintained a far better "middle ground" in terms of what makes successful players per season, and all those stats are actually impactful for whether you go to the HoF, yeah I do think them coming to the VHL with 175 hell even 200-250 TPE is a better first intro. 

 

You guys don't seem to grasp this. EVERYTHING IN THE VHLM IS MEANINGLESS. All of it. Nothing matters. VHLM Award wins or stats have zero bearing on anything that happens with the rest of your players career. Whether you talk about HoF, award wins, stats, none of it translates to anything we track or give a shit about. Because it can't. The league changes far too drastically for it to be fair and balanced in any way, or really give us any indication of who does what or not. Inactives can wreck the league and that has happened tons before. 

 

People aren't suddenly going to have more fun because the league has more scoring. More people treat it as what it is, the useless fucking stepping stone to get you to the real league because of TPE differences. You spend their time in there, maybe you try to have some fun and win, but really does it matter? In any way to your overall experience? Nope. Yet it matters to new members who go inactive there because it's so fucking boring that nothing of consequence is really going on. That changes when they get thrown in locker rooms with members and teams committing to longer term runs. There is zero argument that woudl tell me a new member wouldn't rather player on Helsinki than any team in the VHLM. And I'd say that probably goes for a lot of VHL teams. 

 

Besides parity in the VHL would continue to increase if all the players were in one spot. Because teams would be more full, inactives would be given far less priority because keeping younger players at 200-300 TPE to try and make them active enough to hit 500+ would be more beneficial than utilizing a 350+ inactive in a lot of situations. Especially since most teams in the VHL now don't build for a one season run. Teams want to repeat at least, and stay competitive for at least 4 seasons. 

[TurnDaddy 323]

30 minutes ago, Fire Hakstol said:

 

More shots = more points and more shots blocked.

 

The real losers are goalies.

I was kind of thinking that would be the case, but also thought If it's goals that are turned up, how many shots would really be blocked after that, ya know? 

[Gooningitup 1,290]

21 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

The real issue isn't just stats though. A person could get 400 points in the VHLM. Even as a new member they will probably recognize that is meaningless. It servers zero indication of how their real career will go, and since the VHL has maintained a far better "middle ground" in terms of what makes successful players per season, and all those stats are actually impactful for whether you go to the HoF, yeah I do think them coming to the VHL with 175 hell even 200-250 TPE is a better first intro. 

 

You guys don't seem to grasp this. EVERYTHING IN THE VHLM IS MEANINGLESS. All of it. Nothing matters. VHLM Award wins or stats have zero bearing on anything that happens with the rest of your players career. Whether you talk about HoF, award wins, stats, none of it translates to anything we track or give a shit about. Because it can't. The league changes far too drastically for it to be fair and balanced in any way, or really give us any indication of who does what or not. Inactives can wreck the league and that has happened tons before. 

 

People aren't suddenly going to have more fun because the league has more scoring. More people treat it as what it is, the useless fucking stepping stone to get you to the real league because of TPE differences. You spend their time in there, maybe you try to have some fun and win, but really does it matter? In any way to your overall experience? Nope. Yet it matters to new members who go inactive there because it's so fucking boring that nothing of consequence is really going on. That changes when they get thrown in locker rooms with members and teams committing to longer term runs. There is zero argument that woudl tell me a new member wouldn't rather player on Helsinki than any team in the VHLM. And I'd say that probably goes for a lot of VHL teams. 

 

Besides parity in the VHL would continue to increase if all the players were in one spot. Because teams would be more full, inactives would be given far less priority because keeping younger players at 200-300 TPE to try and make them active enough to hit 500+ would be more beneficial than utilizing a 350+ inactive in a lot of situations. Especially since most teams in the VHL now don't build for a one season run. Teams want to repeat at least, and stay competitive for at least 4 seasons. 

 

My only issue with this is hit an miss of prospects, because now how do you draft?. Prime example is me, i fell to 25 have had a track record in the league. Even though untill nowi was never a total tpe whore. Meanwhille teams as you saw in my article took newer members over me and got burned. Even some who stayed active havent kept pace. It makes the VHL draft unpredictable, and could allow some teams to domiate for longer times than they do now.

 

Mainly because they get lucky draft the right guys, make smart trades. Its very hard for teams in the VHLM to draft. Now your playing for higher stakes. Yes i know some guys even after the VHLM get drafted into the VHL high still bust. But its not as common

[Corco 1,162]

34 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

The real issue isn't just stats though. A person could get 400 points in the VHLM. Even as a new member they will probably recognize that is meaningless. It servers zero indication of how their real career will go, and since the VHL has maintained a far better "middle ground" in terms of what makes successful players per season, and all those stats are actually impactful for whether you go to the HoF, yeah I do think them coming to the VHL with 175 hell even 200-250 TPE is a better first intro. 

 

You guys don't seem to grasp this. EVERYTHING IN THE VHLM IS MEANINGLESS. All of it. Nothing matters. VHLM Award wins or stats have zero bearing on anything that happens with the rest of your players career. Whether you talk about HoF, award wins, stats, none of it translates to anything we track or give a shit about. Because it can't. The league changes far too drastically for it to be fair and balanced in any way, or really give us any indication of who does what or not. Inactives can wreck the league and that has happened tons before. 

 

People aren't suddenly going to have more fun because the league has more scoring. More people treat it as what it is, the useless fucking stepping stone to get you to the real league because of TPE differences. You spend their time in there, maybe you try to have some fun and win, but really does it matter? In any way to your overall experience? Nope. Yet it matters to new members who go inactive there because it's so fucking boring that nothing of consequence is really going on. That changes when they get thrown in locker rooms with members and teams committing to longer term runs. There is zero argument that woudl tell me a new member wouldn't rather player on Helsinki than any team in the VHLM. And I'd say that probably goes for a lot of VHL teams. 

 

Besides parity in the VHL would continue to increase if all the players were in one spot. Because teams would be more full, inactives would be given far less priority because keeping younger players at 200-300 TPE to try and make them active enough to hit 500+ would be more beneficial than utilizing a 350+ inactive in a lot of situations. Especially since most teams in the VHL now don't build for a one season run. Teams want to repeat at least, and stay competitive for at least 4 seasons. 

Why do the SBA and SHL have extremely active junior leagues? Their junior leagues aren't any more meaningful than the VHLM, and they're thriving. And to the Helsinki comment, why would Helsinki even want a new member who has a high chance of going inactive because of the current VHL retention rate? Not only that, but I doubt any contending team would want to add a minimum TPE player, even for a cup run, if it could damage their chances of winning. They wouldn't get nearly as much playing time as they would in the VHLM; you would just have the rebuilding teams filled with low-TPE new members.

[Devise 4,475]

6 minutes ago, Corco said:

Why do the SBA and SHL have extremely active junior leagues? Their junior leagues aren't any more meaningful than the VHLM, and they're thriving. And to the Helsinki comment, why would Helsinki even want a new member who has a high chance of going inactive because of the current VHL retention rate? Not only that, but I doubt any contending team would want to add a minimum TPE player, even for a cup run, if it could damage their chances of winning. They wouldn't get nearly as much playing time as they would in the VHLM; you would just have the rebuilding teams filled with low-TPE new members.

 

How does a new player damage a teams chance of winning? Helsinki was an edge case example, but most teams wouldn't be choosing to add a new player or another player. Newer players would more likely than not be cheap enough that competing teams could afford to add them as rentals/waiver claims when they first create, or even trade for them after the fact if the fit is right. Competing teams don't look exactly the same in terms of strengths/weaknesses but one thing you are starting to see shared. Diversity among player age. It isn't just one or two seasons of players close together with similar TPE. You supplement for depth/cap reasons. But that is neither here nor there anyways. For a new member those aren't things they have to deal with. You can trust that any competing team would add a 250+ TPE player to their team if they had the cap to do so and didn't have anything else planned. 

 

Also I can't speak to the SBA and SHL. They are different leagues, with different member bases and are both run differently. What we do know is we have tried every different strategy under the sun to stimulate VHLM interest and activity. Even ideas the other two leagues have utilized. Yet the results continue to speak for themselves. We need to do what is right for us not what is right for other leagues. I'm not saying a junior system couldn't work, but it would need to be constructed from the ground up with better principles and ideas in mind than whatever we have now. Ultimately I think our member base + the hassle just doesn't justify it. We have a minor parity issue due to lack of players in the main leagues and a cripplingly ineffective minor league system. So instead of going through a silly contraction in the VHL it makes far more sense to just remove the VHLM, increase TPE counts to start players careers (we have a harsh enough update scale now to justify this) and then we can keep 10 teams without any real issue. 

 

If down the road a Junior System is proposed that makes sense, and we have the player base to support it sure. But this keep reducing teams in the VHLM until it's just a cycle of competing teams yet zero locker room activity for most of them or really zero spark or interest. I just don't see the point. Keeping something on life support because we are too proud to admit it's not working imo. 

[Corco 1,162]

14 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

How does a new player damage a teams chance of winning? Helsinki was an edge case example, but most teams wouldn't be choosing to add a new player or another player. Newer players would more likely than not be cheap enough that competing teams could afford to add them as rentals/waiver claims when they first create, or even trade for them after the fact if the fit is right. Competing teams don't look exactly the same in terms of strengths/weaknesses but one thing you are starting to see shared. Diversity among player age. It isn't just one or two seasons of players close together with similar TPE. You supplement for depth/cap reasons. But that is neither here nor there anyways. For a new member those aren't things they have to deal with. You can trust that any competing team would add a 250+ TPE player to their team if they had the cap to do so and didn't have anything else planned. 

 

Also I can't speak to the SBA and SHL. They are different leagues, with different member bases and are both run differently. What we do know is we have tried every different strategy under the sun to stimulate VHLM interest and activity. Even ideas the other two leagues have utilized. Yet the results continue to speak for themselves. We need to do what is right for us not what is right for other leagues. I'm not saying a junior system couldn't work, but it would need to be constructed from the ground up with better principles and ideas in mind than whatever we have now. Ultimately I think our member base + the hassle just doesn't justify it. We have a minor parity issue due to lack of players in the main leagues and a cripplingly ineffective minor league system. So instead of going through a silly contraction in the VHL it makes far more sense to just remove the VHLM, increase TPE counts to start players careers (we have a harsh enough update scale now to justify this) and then we can keep 10 teams without any real issue. 

 

If down the road a Junior System is proposed that makes sense, and we have the player base to support it sure. But this keep reducing teams in the VHLM until it's just a cycle of competing teams yet zero locker room activity for most of them or really zero spark or interest. I just don't see the point. Keeping something on life support because we are too proud to admit it's not working imo. 

The VHL has survived for over 50+ season with the VHLM; literally every member of VHL history has played in the VHLM. You're talking about completely changing the structure of the league, and removing the VHLM completely would arguably be the biggest change to the VHL in its 10 years. I just don't think the VHLM situation RIGHT NOW is so bad that it absolutely needs to be fixed or the VHL will fold. While I do agree that a massive revamp of the Junior system could be beneficial, I think that as a league we still have a long time to create a new VHLM from scratch.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

I'm still waiting on a plan for removing the VHLM that makes sense, because I haven't seen one.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

18 hours ago, hedgehog337 said:

  GM's to make rookies more involved into this league. Like having an active LR, because quiet LR is giving VHLM a bad name. I don't throwing shades at the current VHLM GM's and probably all 5 teams are having 300-400 posts already, I'm just saying they should be motvated to make things more exciting. And I'm not talking only about the LR.

 

 

 

Gms could have activity check topics with postcounts and have some kind of end of season lottery (like pre written pts to submit for the member)

 

That was one of the best initiatives Vegas had last season.

[jRuutu 2,426]

I think it´s time to do some radical changes, look at the VHL index , we got 3 teams that are under 35 points after 63 games. I don´t follow what goes in those teams, but first guess is that rebuilding is happening, but still.... Let´s look at Express for example, they are still using defenders as forwards and forwards as defenders, now if you would offer me, a recently joined player a change to play in VHL and in Express -  on their top-6 OR in VHLM in top-6 of some team, I would go to VHL and Express every time.

 

We have the space, pretty much every single team is double shifting someone or has loads of bots. If a GMs argument against having young players playing up right away is that your team might lose few more games than now, you should be fired from the GM position right away.  I also find it hard to believe that newer members would just go away because they ´have´ to play in VHL right away instead of dangling around in VHLM and playing against bots or inactive players.

 

From a personal point of view, these two past seasons have been the most boring seasons in VHL for me ever, 0 enjoyment seeing Quebec winning someone 6-1, fine if those happens few times per year, but it´s almost every other sim these days. I want to see tight games. I don´t know if adding everybody into VHL helps in that, but cant be worse than now, it just cant.

Edited July 11, 2017 by jRuutu

[Beketov 8,939]

On 2017-07-09 at 8:47 PM, Corco said:

-VHL needs to retain newer members better

-If people think the VHLM is boring, what will removing it and putting players directly into the VHL upon creation do? You'll be getting demolished by 500+TPE superstars. Even if you get say, 175 TPE at creation, you're still not really going to put up any kind of impressive stats. 

I’m under 300 TPE with Sokolov and the most likely candidate for the Labatte this season. It’s definitely possible. Maybe their rookie seasons wouldn’t be fantastic but I believe they could definitely do it. Plus it might make ROTY races a little more interesting rather than it being obvious who the top 2 TPE earners were that have a shot at it. The only real players it would drastically hurt IMO are goalies since they’d only get to play 8 games a year which would be kinda dull. They’d at least have the better LR though.

 

Up until now I have been generally against the removal of the VHLM as it simply looks like a sign of weakness but even I have to admit that what @Devise is saying makes sense. Why should we be considering removing VHL teams when we have a pool of players in a league they don’t want to be in anyway? If players had more TPE at creation they could easily become depth players on VHL rosters and actually feel as if they are contributing. Sure, you won’t get hat tricks like you may have in the VHLM but is that not worth it when you consider that you could get a continental cup? Personally I’ve had amazing success (individually speaking) in the VHLM but I’ve never really cared about it anyway because I know it’s just a stepping stone. I think even new members would rather be up on a pro roster (potentially in a pretty decent lineup spot if the team is rebuilding) rather than wasting away in an inactive VHLM locker room.

 

If we get our member base back up and see a need to bring the VHLM back in we could re-structure it from the ground up the way it needs. However at this point I think we’ve hit a wall with how effective the VHLM can be and it’s time to do away with it.

[BOOM 8,650]

There's also a need to be careful about making new members feel and perform like superstars in the vhlm (if scoring is artificially inflated for example), only for them to get to the VHL and suddenly suck against the 500- 1000+ TPE guys. Confidence and related enjoyment can take a real hit and loss of interest may be an issue for some members.