Alternative to STHS?

[oilmandan 686]

In my first 10 weeks in the VHL universe I've done my best to immerse myself into everything the VHL has to offer, from the forum and portal all the way into the discord, and its hidden depths. I've connected with many very fine people, and a few that make me shake my head.

 

One of the more constant complaints I've read is that the STHS is very flawed and most seem to think it has no rhyme or reason as to how the simulations play out. Calgary dominated the S62 season and barely squeaked out a 7 game Continental Cup victory against Quebec. Halifax ran roughshod over the VHLM all year long and vowed out in 4 games to my own team, the Ottawa Lynx in the Founders Cup Championship.

 

While no one would have fun if the outcome of games and seasons were almost set in stone before the drop of a puck, would a little more consistency be a good thing?

 

I, myself have played just about all the Franchise Hockey Manager games on PC. I bought the first edition and was very disappointed. That was partly by own fault as I had expected something similar to the Out Of The Park Baseball games that were made by the same company. Throughout the more recent games, FHM has improved tenfold, and is a solid alternative to the EA Sports NHL games. Especially for those who want more control of the entire organization, as opposed to buying colorful toques to play the same game on a pond.

 

The FHM customization features have also come a long way. And from all accounts FHM 5 is the best one yet. I'm not anything special at working with computers and I do salute all the VHL staff for the hard work they do trying to keep everyone happy, while leading their own busy lives. But might it be time to explore a change in the program used for simming?

 

From what I've seen of STHS it definitely isn't something you can just pick up and go with. With Bana allowing me to help with Team World in the World Cup, it took lots of tinkering to get a good feel for the way to set our team up.

 

FHM has become, in my opinion, very user friendly and easy to edit rosters and lineups to your hearts content. Even though it has its flaws as well, the game will continue to improve and likely won't die out as metro hockey did.

 

Obviously there would be a learning curve as there is with anything, and maybe it just isn't feasible either. As I said before I'm not calling for huge changes, just presenting an idea for discussion and taking time away from posting smut to get some delicious TPE

467 words 

Edited October 26, 2018 by oilmandan

[Beketov 8,762]

After 62 seasons changing engine really isn’t feasible at all I will say. Plus, for what it’s worth, STHS is relatively consistent but the playoffs are... something else. I don’t know what kind of randomness gets turned to 11 in the playoffs but it likes causing upsets. Been doing that literally since S1 when Calgary lost only 3 games in the regular season but lost the cup.

 

What I will say is the VHLM upset makes a lot more sense. Halifax dominated the league early because they got strong players early butthe VHLM cap means other teams caught up with them in TPE by the time the playoffs came around.

 

Also no, multiple weeks of VHL.com in one go isn’t allowed.

[Beaviss 4,949]

5 hours ago, Beketov said:

After 62 seasons changing engine really isn’t feasible at all I will say. Plus, for what it’s worth, STHS is relatively consistent but the playoffs are... something else. I don’t know what kind of randomness gets turned to 11 in the playoffs but it likes causing upsets. Been doing that literally since S1 when Calgary lost only 3 games in the regular season but lost the cup.

 

What I will say is the VHLM upset makes a lot more sense. Halifax dominated the league early because they got strong players early butthe VHLM cap means other teams caught up with them in TPE by the time the playoffs came around.

 

Also no, multiple weeks of VHL.com in one go isn’t allowed.

 

there are rumors that NHL 2020 will also be coming out on PC which would be very cool if we can actually watch our games.

 

What would it cost to make our own engine?

Edited October 26, 2018 by Beaviss

[Beketov 8,762]

6 minutes ago, Beaviss said:

 

there are rumors that NHL 2020 will also be coming out on PC which would be very cool if we can actually watch our games.

 

What would it cost to make our own engine?

Man, you would have liked the olden days. We used to sim on EA NHL games haha. Ultimately it’s not worth the effort though. You can’t have daily sims without way too much effort, and even then it’s usually only 1 game. Plus making and updating the players is a major pain. Think how how annoying the ASGwas for you. Now times that by over 200 games per season and add in updates...

 

As for making our own, more money and expertise than we have by far. And there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t be buggy either. Honestly STHS isn’t perfect but it has been solid for us for over 11 years. It can do some wonky things in the playoffs but more often than not the better team does win. You do want shut of randomness, as annoying as it can be. Otherwise it would be really boring knowing from the off-season who’s gonna win the cup.

[Beaviss 4,949]

7 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Man, you would have liked the olden days. We used to sim on EA NHL games haha. Ultimately it’s not worth the effort though. You can’t have daily sims without way too much effort, and even then it’s usually only 1 game. Plus making and updating the players is a major pain. Think how how annoying the ASGwas for you. Now times that by over 200 games per season and add in updates...

 

As for making our own, more money and expertise than we have by far. And there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t be buggy either. Honestly STHS isn’t perfect but it has been solid for us for over 11 years. It can do some wonky things in the playoffs but more often than not the better team does win. You do want shut of randomness, as annoying as it can be. Otherwise it would be really boring knowing from the off-season who’s gonna win the cup.

 

I know im just wondering if we can somehow make it better maybe we can talk to Simon about making a higher stat version of it? it wouldn't be hard on his side just changing the algorithms. 

[Beketov 8,762]

37 minutes ago, Beaviss said:

 

I know im just wondering if we can somehow make it better maybe we can talk to Simon about making a higher stat version of it? it wouldn't be hard on his side just changing the algorithms. 

I mean you can go to the Simon forums and suggest it. I can’t imagine he’ll be too interested in making a whole version for 1 league but who knows.

 

It also won’t change the randomness of STHS much, might just make our attributes work better with the new stats.

[Molholt 2,184]

4 minutes ago, Beketov said:

I mean you can go to the Simon forums and suggest it. I can’t imagine he’ll be too interested in making a whole version for 1 league but who knows.

 

It also won’t change the randomness of STHS much, might just make our attributes work better with the new stats.

 

I got the FBB dev to make update files for the SBA  - might not be 100% out of the realm of possibility.

[Beaviss 4,949]

4 minutes ago, Molholt said:

 

I got the FBB dev to make update files for the SBA  - might not be 100% out of the realm of possibility.

 

That's encouraging I'll see if I can get into contact with Simon if you wish @Beketov

[Beketov 8,762]

4 minutes ago, Beaviss said:

 

That's encouraging I'll see if I can get into contact with Simon if you wish @Beketov

If you want to try then have at it.

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

7 hours ago, Beketov said:

After 62 seasons changing engine really isn’t feasible at all I will say. Plus, for what it’s worth, STHS is relatively consistent but the playoffs are... something else. I don’t know what kind of randomness gets turned to 11 in the playoffs but it likes causing upsets. Been doing that literally since S1 when Calgary lost only 3 games in the regular season but lost the cup.

 

What I will say is the VHLM upset makes a lot more sense. Halifax dominated the league early because they got strong players early butthe VHLM cap means other teams caught up with them in TPE by the time the playoffs came around.

 

Also no, multiple weeks of VHL.com in one go isn’t allowed.

@Smarch

'upset in season 1'

@scotty

[Beketov 8,762]

4 minutes ago, TheLastOlympian07 said:

@Smarch

'upset in season 1'

@scotty

I mean that’s the official story haha

[Devise 4,475]

To be fair, perhaps now that we have a little bit of a budget we could persuade Simon to do some custom work on our version. Realistically @Beketov that isn't that crazy of a suggestion. As someone who is in web development himself, while this is more application, asking for custom made tuning to a new engine and saying we'd pay for his services to help out with that is very normal from a business standpoint. Remember we are an avid user of his engine, so essentially already a paying client, and we are offering to pay more for specialized services regarding the application he actively develops. That isn't weird by any stretch. 

 

I wouldn't mind having a chat with him about it to be honest, just to see what can be done with the way our league does things like stamina, roster sizes, and see if we can get an updated version of the engine so we can get the upgrades without some of the downsides. Even if he was only tweaking things on his end to fit with the way our players and core have built from the get go. It's certainly an avenue worth exploring. 

[Beaviss 4,949]

7 minutes ago, Devise said:

To be fair, perhaps now that we have a little bit of a budget we could persuade Simon to do some custom work on our version. Realistically @Beketov that isn't that crazy of a suggestion. As someone who is in web development himself, while this is more application, asking for custom made tuning to a new engine and saying we'd pay for his services to help out with that is very normal from a business standpoint. Remember we are an avid user of his engine, so essentially already a paying client, and we are offering to pay more for specialized services regarding the application he actively develops. That isn't weird by any stretch. 

 

I wouldn't mind having a chat with him about it to be honest, just to see what can be done with the way our league does things like stamina, roster sizes, and see if we can get an updated version of the engine so we can get the upgrades without some of the downsides. Even if he was only tweaking things on his end to fit with the way our players and core have built from the get go. It's certainly an avenue worth exploring. 

 

I've already emailed him ill create a thread in the BOG for all emails back and forth between me and him that way we can group our ideas together for wanted changes.

[Beketov 8,762]

1 hour ago, Devise said:

To be fair, perhaps now that we have a little bit of a budget we could persuade Simon to do some custom work on our version. Realistically @Beketov that isn't that crazy of a suggestion. As someone who is in web development himself, while this is more application, asking for custom made tuning to a new engine and saying we'd pay for his services to help out with that is very normal from a business standpoint. Remember we are an avid user of his engine, so essentially already a paying client, and we are offering to pay more for specialized services regarding the application he actively develops. That isn't weird by any stretch. 

 

I wouldn't mind having a chat with him about it to be honest, just to see what can be done with the way our league does things like stamina, roster sizes, and see if we can get an updated version of the engine so we can get the upgrades without some of the downsides. Even if he was only tweaking things on his end to fit with the way our players and core have built from the get go. It's certainly an avenue worth exploring. 

It’s not so much that it’s unreasonable per say, it’s that the suggestions forum on his official forums specify “don’t suggest things specifically for your league” so he does t sound like the kind of guy who loves doing custom work. For the right price though, who knows. Would depend how extreme the re-writes would have to be.

 

I’m not opposed to trying, Im just not getting my hopes up that he’ll be willing to do anything major for us.

[Enorama 2,002]

5 hours ago, Beaviss said:

What would it cost to make our own engine?

 

There's a guy in the EHM online community making his own sim game with 2d animated visuals. He's only just getting started at it, but that could be something to look at in 1-3 years or whatever.

[Beaviss 4,949]

2 minutes ago, Enorama said:

 

There's a guy in the EHM online community making his own sim game with 2d animated visuals. He's only just getting started at it, but that could be something to look at in 1-3 years or whatever.

 

Thats a cool idea, that was something I was going to kinda start as a side project. Dont have the time currently tho

[Enorama 2,002]

3 minutes ago, Beaviss said:

 

Thats a cool idea, that was something I was going to kinda start as a side project. Dont have the time currently tho

 

He's a musician-turned-self taught programmer who just got a job in software development. He just made a nice little bot that saves the game in our EHM leagues for us. It means instead of having to have certain trusted people remote in to the host server to save the game, any member can type !save in the general discord chat and the bot does all the clicks for us.

[Devise 4,475]

5 minutes ago, Enorama said:

 

There's a guy in the EHM online community making his own sim game with 2d animated visuals. He's only just getting started at it, but that could be something to look at in 1-3 years or whatever.

 

Yeah absolutely. Even if working with Simon right now is only a stopgap to make sure we have the best version of the sim engine we have, the future is very bright in this type of thing. The reality is we should be working towards engines that allow us to watch games, in hyper realistic graphics, with players input from our forum at some point eventually. As I have been saying to people for years this is just how all this stuff starts. Forget 1-3 years, I want to know what the engines we can use look like in another decade plus, y'know? 

[Beaviss 4,949]

26 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

Yeah absolutely. Even if working with Simon right now is only a stopgap to make sure we have the best version of the sim engine we have, the future is very bright in this type of thing. The reality is we should be working towards engines that allow us to watch games, in hyper realistic graphics, with players input from our forum at some point eventually. As I have been saying to people for years this is just how all this stuff starts. Forget 1-3 years, I want to know what the engines we can use look like in another decade plus, y'know? 

 

Its rumored NHL 2020 is going to be on PC imagine the mods we could do to make it work.