Keaton Louth Rule

[jRuutu 2,462]

11 minutes ago, Beketov said:

I’m fine having that added to the trade deadline. Honestly though all the other GM’s has no problem keeping track (Quik’s mistake came from a slip up in his last sent lines) and even Beaviss. Came from miss-reading stats. However it’s not hard to add. Like I said, they should be keeping track but it’s easy enough to add to the post as a reminder.

 

Come from the guy who loves depth it’s amazing to me that you’d say teams shouldn’t have active players but I digress. There are cap clauses in that make backups cheaper and an active backup will basically always play better than a CPU. Had Quebec had one maybe this wouldn’t have even been as big a deal. If a GM wants to risk their backup games by having a CPU instead of rewarding an active member that’s their choice but that doesn’t mean we will give them extra incentive to do it.

 

Punishing the team is punishing the GM. Punishing Beaviss’ players would result in a punishment for his other team when they did nothing wrong and it violates the whole point of GM and player being separate entities. The Louth’s shouldn’t be punished because of a team made mistake by @Beaviss. As for why not a pick, it’s quite simple. Let’s say a team is in a close battle for the playoffs. They decide, “I don’t care about that pick, we’re gunning for it this season” and leave their starter in all season. Not only does that starter now have an unfair advantage stat wise but that team has an unfair advantage in regards to making the playoffs because they have a better player in for more of the season. Now a team that might have made the playoffs is out because they followed the rules and their opponent didn’t. The fairest method is to punish the team that broke the rules in order to make the playoffs during those playoffs. 

 

And yes, these rules were thought over (and fought over) for a long time. Anyone from the BOG can tell you that, we spent ages going over them to try and find a black and white way we could write it but ultimately there’s is no singular punishment that works in every situation which is why we left it open. For the most part it will fall to “if you make the playoffs, playoff starts will be taken. If you don’t, draft picks” but there is wiggle room as their needs to be with anything that can vary so wildly. I’m not saying everyone needs to accept it but calling out the league for being on a power trip because we followed through on punishment as we said we would is going a little far.

 

I get the disappointment but ultimately the rules were broken and Quebec needed to pay for it, end of story. It’s lovely to say the best players should play in the playoffs but that does t always get to be the case. In the NHL if you get suspended in the last game of the season and you’re the team’s leading scorer do they just decide you get to play in the playoffs? No. You broke the rules, you pay the penalty. We didn’t hide these rules and arbitrarily decide to implement them only after they were broken. It’s always been a rule for 64 seasons and it’s been known all season that there would be punishments for it.

I do like depth, but at the moment I don´t see why any team should have backup G when bots play like this? The comments here suggest that Quebec should focus on other areas because it was not goaltending that let us down.

 

Punish the Louth guy in Quebec? Surely that is going to hit home equally well and innocent players would not have to miss out on the action. If a GM made the mistake, punish the GM in whatever way. In that case if a GM decides to just F it and goes all in and does whatever to get record or something, you should fire him, BUT in Beaviss case, it was not done on purpose, the team made the playoffs quite clearly even if you straight up handed out 9 point or whatever point penalty for the missed games and looked at the standing again = point is, did not affect the playoff race and you should take that into consideration like you look each case and then decide what the penalty is.

 

That is how I see it in this case, note: In this case, not in the wildest examples on what the GM could do and what it means then, but in this case and with all the information taken into consideration. Punishment like this was to show who is the boss and maybe to get few cheap laughs with the big boys at the BOG office when the plan comes together. What is good for the league and for the playoffs in this situation and in this case came second.

 

This is not the NHL, in NHL you would lose every single game with the rosters and kind of players we have in VHL. There is also no backup rules in NHL, we don´t also have suspensions in VHL.  Overall, this was a wrong decision on the punishment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jRuutu 2,462]

30 minutes ago, Advantage said:

Man you guys sitting here saying they are punishing one player when he also got to start more games in the regular season...you know the main criteria they look at for Hall of Fame and such.

So why not force the backup to play 14 games next year and the whatever statistical advantage goes away quite nicely?

 

25 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Please see my above note.

 

Anything that involves a playoff team getting punished the next season opens the door for people to abuse the rules in order to gain an advantage. Yes, in this season Quebec was not close to missing the playoffs but that doesn’t mean a team never will be. If we just said this was the rule and a team was in a close playoff battle I guarantee you’d see them leave the starter in and deal with the consequences later when things aren’t as tight. At that point you could easily have an entire team that followed the rules missing the playoffs because their opponent chose not to follow the rules. That isn’t fair, plain and simple. No team should be potentially rewarded for breaking the rules.

If a team sold everything and everybody, but for next year managed to get or keep two goalies, one inactive who is a lot better and the other is young and upcoming active one, what stops that GM from making sure the young goalie gets all the love and just plays him or her for full year? Keep in mind the team has shit loads of picks and cap space, nowhere near playoffs - could happen now?

 

And to that playoff case with a tight race and two or more teams battling right to the end on who gets in, why not fire the GM right there on the spot and put in point penalty, so the team who followed the rules gets into the playoffs?

 

 

 

[Beketov 8,996]

26 minutes ago, jRuutu said:

Punishment like this was to show who is the boss and maybe to get few cheap laughs with the big boys at the BOG office when the plan comes together.

If you honestly think that then there can be no reasonable discussion on the matter. @Will, nor I, nor anyone else makes a decision for the sake of it, let alone to show how big and strong we are. In a case like this we have a day at best to decide on something before the playoffs need to begin. This isn’t a time where we can spend ages going over the scenarios. Rather we follow the rules in place and make it clean. Quebec missed 3 games, Helsinki missed 1. This Quebec plays the backup 3 games and Helsinki plays 1. It’s fair whether you agree with it or not. You can disagree with the choice all you want, and I know you’re capable of arguing in circles forever; but do not sit there and say that we made a decision intentionally to hurt a team (with how the regular season went I would have gladly faced Quebec over Toronto so why would I influence it the other way?) or for fun. We make every decision for the best of the league. If you don’t want to deal with the punishment then make sure that you’re on top of your GM to get the backup games in. I’ve checked plenty of times with @Banackock to see how our backup games are progressing. I used to do the same with @DollarAndADream. Players aren’t completely helpless.

 

25 minutes ago, jRuutu said:

And to that playoff case with a tight race and two or more teams battling right to the end on who gets in, why not fire the GM right there on the spot and put in point penalty, so the team who followed the rules gets into the playoffs?

That’s excessive and you know it. Rules can clearly be put in place (and are) to avoid it without having to replace a bunch of GM’s. I suggest you take the high road like your GM has an accept that a mistake was made and the punishment was delivered for it. If GM’s do as they are supposed to (As 6/8 did this season plus a minor technical glitch for the 7th) this won’t ever need to be a problem.

[majesiu 58]

Conditional punishments are the worst idea, it will always deservedly spark controversy. Having gazillion ways to update lines is yet another bad idea, why just not use a newer version of STHS and let GMs upload the lines instead of using mails, or at the very least can't you create shared Gmail account for that purpose anyway if you need backup simmer taking over, so no line update get missed? Everybody defends their point without seeing serious flaws and mistakes, that could've been easily avoided. Punishing players and the team for the organizational mess is laughable and only sparks more controversy when you decide punishments on your discretion. 

Especially funny is that many people talking in this thread and trying to negate the magnitude of this punishment were on the opposing side and benefited from this ruling, the claim that worse in every aspect goalie helped the team, in a losing series, after all, is one of the worst I've ever seen.

I understand this rule might be needed with an overflow of goalies (which could be easily stopped if you started tracking players and needed positions in a position tracker or gave small red warning when creating the player), still as every rule should be crystal clear, because your gray area is apparently only about punishment and not about mitigating circumstances, that were certainly here. Imo, much better choice would be to eliminate bot goalies altogether and give backups even bigger role if you have more than 8 active goalies in the VHL it's a no brainer, and you certainly have enough non retired goalies, with portal showing 70 non retired ones.

[Beaviss 4,957]

10 minutes ago, majesiu said:

Conditional punishments are the worst idea, it will always deservedly spark controversy. Having gazillion ways to update lines is yet another bad idea, why just not use a newer version of STHS and let GMs upload the lines instead of using mails, or at the very least can't you create shared Gmail account for that purpose anyway if you need backup simmer taking over, so no line update get missed? Everybody defends their point without seeing serious flaws and mistakes, that could've been easily avoided. Punishing players and the team for the organizational mess is laughable and only sparks more controversy when you decide punishments on your discretion. 

Especially funny is that many people talking in this thread and trying to negate the magnitude of this punishment were on the opposing side and benefited from this ruling, the claim that worse in every aspect goalie helped the team, in a losing series, after all, is one of the worst I've ever seen.

I understand this rule might be needed with an overflow of goalies (which could be easily stopped if you started tracking players and needed positions in a position tracker or gave small red warning when creating the player), still as every rule should be crystal clear, because your gray area is apparently only about punishment and not about mitigating circumstances, that were certainly here. Imo, much better choice would be to eliminate bot goalies altogether and give backups even bigger role if you have more than 8 active goalies in the VHL it's a no brainer, and you certainly have enough non retired goalies, with portal showing 70 non retired ones.

 

Im breaking my silence.... This ^

 

Agreed with everything said here.

[Beketov 8,996]

6 minutes ago, majesiu said:

Conditional punishments are the worst idea, it will always deservedly spark controversy. Having gazillion ways to update lines is yet another bad idea, why just not use a newer version of STHS and let GMs upload the lines instead of using mails, or at the very least can't you create shared Gmail account for that purpose anyway if you need backup simmer taking over, so no line update get missed? Everybody defends their point without seeing serious flaws and mistakes, that could've been easily avoided. Punishing players and the team for the organizational mess is laughable and only sparks more controversy when you decide punishments on your discretion. 

Especially funny is that many people talking in this thread and trying to negate the magnitude of this punishment were on the opposing side and benefited from this ruling, the claim that worse in every aspect goalie helped the team, in a losing series, after all, is one of the worst I've ever seen.

I understand this rule might be needed with an overflow of goalies (which could be easily stopped if you started tracking players and needed positions in a position tracker or gave small red warning when creating the player), still as every rule should be crystal clear, because your gray area is apparently only about punishment and not about mitigating circumstances, that were certainly here. Imo, much better choice would be to eliminate bot goalies altogether and give backups even bigger role if you have more than 8 active goalies in the VHL it's a no brainer, and you certainly have enough non retired goalies, with portal showing 70 non retired ones.

We can’t use a newer version of STHS that allows that. If it exists (I don’t know that it does) it would be a newer engine version which we’ve been testing but can’t stabilize. Trust me, we don’t want 450 point seasons which is what we get.

 

As for the email, we’re working on a fix via the portal but it’s not fully implemented yet. The email is actually shared and Will / myself use it. However we live near each other. If Devise tries to use it while living across the country it gets flagged and locked. Thus the need to send lines to two addresses was created and explained to all GM’s in both the VHL and VHLM.

 

I also don’t think a tracker would help us much. You might get a few reconsidering but honestly goalie has been a position that always swings back and forth and if people want to make one a small red flag isn’t likely to deter them. I also don’t see how we can force teams to sign a human backup; most of which would be inactive. Unless we make a backup literally cost 0 against the cap there will always be teams that don’t want to spend the money on it and the lines require 2 goalies, the engine won’t aim without it.

 

Im just amazed that something which has always been a rule is creating such drama when enforced. I’ve been here since day 1 and since day 1 backups have been required to play 8 games. We didn’t do anything dramatic by deciding to enforce the rule.

[majesiu 58]

6 minutes ago, Beketov said:

We can’t use a newer version of STHS that allows that. If it exists (I don’t know that it does) it would be a newer engine version which we’ve been testing but can’t stabilize. Trust me, we don’t want 450 point seasons which is what we get.

 

 

At the very least two other leagues are doing successfully that without big statistical oddities, STHS is a bitch, but not that ridiculous one as you are painting it to be.

 

Quote

As for the email, we’re working on a fix via the portal but it’s not fully implemented yet. The email is actually shared and Will / myself use it. However we live near each other. If Devise tries to use it while living across the country it gets flagged and locked. Thus the need to send lines to two addresses was created and explained to all GM’s in both the VHL and VHLM.

 

  Then use another solution if that account is getting flagged,  many ways to do that e.g. you can use google group with an email address and add members with access to it: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!overview . Or add two-factor authentication that will override strange places warning.

 

Quote

 

I also don’t think a tracker would help us much. You might get a few reconsidering but honestly goalie has been a position that always swings back and forth and if people want to make one a small red flag isn’t likely to deter them. I also don’t see how we can force teams to sign a human backup; most of which would be inactive. Unless we make a backup literally cost 0 against the cap there will always be teams that don’t want to spend the money on it and the lines require 2 goalies, the engine won’t aim without it.

 

 

 

It wouldn't eliminate problem 100%, but at least players would be aware of the situations and at least some of them would reconsider. The point of forcing human goalies is that the active backups would be in demand, considering teams need to spend money on them anyway, and giving them more time makes the rule more than an annoying oddity.

 

 

Quote

Im just amazed that something which has always been a rule is creating such drama when enforced. I’ve been here since day 1 and since day 1 backups have been required to play 8 games. We didn’t do anything dramatic by deciding to enforce the rule.

 

I don't really care how long you are here, but certainly, you'd have to notice conditional and decided on anybody's discretion punishments cause drama. Also ignoring the rule for years and then trying to reinforce it out of the blue is a bad precedence to take, especially when it impacts the season's outcome.

[Beketov 8,996]

36 minutes ago, majesiu said:

 

At the very least two other leagues are doing successfully that without big statistical oddities, STHS is a bitch, but not that ridiculous one as you are painting it to be.

 

 

  Then use another solution if that account is getting flagged,  many ways to do that e.g. you can use google group with an email address and add members with access to it: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!overview . Or add two-factor authentication that will override strange places warning.

 

 

It wouldn't eliminate problem 100%, but at least players would be aware of the situations and at least some of them would reconsider. The point of forcing human goalies is that the active backups would be in demand, considering teams need to spend money on them anyway, and giving them more time makes the rule more than an annoying oddity.

 

 

 

I don't really care how long you are here, but certainly, you'd have to notice conditional and decided on anybody's discretion punishments cause drama. Also ignoring the rule for years and then trying to reinforce it out of the blue is a bad precedence to take, especially when it impacts the season's outcome.

1. Other leagues don’t run exactly the same and can’t be compared. They either have Fuller teams or lower stats. @Devise and I have run test sims for days and have not been able to find a consistent way to get good results. You can find some of my testing in This thread though Devise has privately tried more.

 

2. I’ll look into these. It’s only my second season on the sim team and only the first with Devise running backup full time. I don’t pretend to have all the answers  for this. Just saying that sending to two emails worked fine once everyone actually read that they were supposed to do so.

 

3. We already have people commenting on basically every goalie created and saying it’s likely not a great choice right now. That’s the same thing. I also imagine there’s never going to be huge acceptance from members to be in a backup role for several seasons. It’s not reasonable for anyone to want that.

 

4. I agree they cause drama. I also desperately tried to find a solution that worked 100% of the time, the entire BOG did. Ultimately we had to accept that no 2 situations are going to be identical so we can’t have cut and dry rules. For the most part it will be “in the playoffs = playoff backup games; not in the playoffs = draft picks” but that won’t happen every time either. And yes, there was no precedent, but it needs to start somewhere. We didn’t decide at the end of the season out of the blue to enforce this. GM’s and members all knew about it before the season started and had ample warning. It’s like stroking past a no trespassing sign on a lot you’re used to cutting through and getting arrested. The precedent wasn’t there before but the rule was clearly posted so it’s on you to adhere to it.

[DollarAndADream 3,356]

I think something that's been pretty damn clear since I came to the VHL years ago is that nobody is really power hungry here. Usually those guys don't last long in the upper management in the VHL. Beketov, Quik, Will, and the rest are some of the most laid back guys you could have to run a league.

 

This rule has been around a long time. When I was a GM a few seasons ago, I used to check when there was like 10 games left how many teams didn't have their backups played yet and I'd send out a PM to the Commissioners as a reminder. Then sometimes even the simmer would throw in the backup to prevent it from happening. That wasn't even something I needed to do.

 

Also games being missed by a backup meant the regular goalie played more. Those games impact statistics for the regular season, which also goes into awards and the Hall of Fame considerations. Sometimes one goalie will beat out another in votes because of barely any percentage, which those 8 games will affect.

[Quik 4,113]

^^^

 

@Beketov and I (and @Will) aren’t here to screw anyone over. When we came up with the punishment (through the BOG, so not just us) it was with the hope that it would be a deterrent to overplaying starters, not a hope that we could gleefully hand out punishment that will affect teams. The rules in place now are harsh for a reason, and everyone was apprised of the consequences should they break them. Like I’ve said, I can understand frustration in being hit with the penalty, but it’s not like people weren’t warned, or that the players on the teams couldn’t have kept track as well. Are we supposed to turn a blind eye, literally the first season after the rules were clarified?

 

At the end of the day, this isn’t anyone’s full time job, so of course there won’t be a “perfect world” scenario in most situations - there rarely is. All we can do is try to find the best balance we can. So, rather than complaining about how unfair the punishment is, the solution is simple: don’t get to a point where punishment needs to be doled out. 

[jRuutu 2,462]

6 hours ago, Beketov said:

If you honestly think that then there can be no reasonable discussion on the matter. @Will, nor I, nor anyone else makes a decision for the sake of it, let alone to show how big and strong we are. In a case like this we have a day at best to decide on something before the playoffs need to begin. This isn’t a time where we can spend ages going over the scenarios. Rather we follow the rules in place and make it clean. Quebec missed 3 games, Helsinki missed 1. This Quebec plays the backup 3 games and Helsinki plays 1. It’s fair whether you agree with it or not. You can disagree with the choice all you want, and I know you’re capable of arguing in circles forever; but do not sit there and say that we made a decision intentionally to hurt a team (with how the regular season went I would have gladly faced Quebec over Toronto so why would I influence it the other way?) or for fun. We make every decision for the best of the league. If you don’t want to deal with the punishment then make sure that you’re on top of your GM to get the backup games in. I’ve checked plenty of times with @Banackock to see how our backup games are progressing. I used to do the same with @DollarAndADream. Players aren’t completely helpless.

 

That’s excessive and you know it. Rules can clearly be put in place (and are) to avoid it without having to replace a bunch of GM’s. I suggest you take the high road like your GM has an accept that a mistake was made and the punishment was delivered for it. If GM’s do as they are supposed to (As 6/8 did this season plus a minor technical glitch for the 7th) this won’t ever need to be a problem.

Hard not to think that there was nothing extra in play when deciding this punishment, could have just as easily decided to punish the team in some other way, despite what was agreed on before the season. It´s not fair to make a team play with a backup in playoffs, it´s just not. Regular season games are not the same as playoff games, playoff games are more valuable always. Throwing these extra games to playoffs too easily and in this case, it seriously hurt the team.

 

That is excessive, I agree, but something that could happen even in smaller scale, some team having more than few picks and a lot of cap space, then missing playoffs and you are left wondering how to punish the team in a situation like this, take a pick away? Uuh, that hurt - got 4 more left, cap penalty? Owie, now I only have 15 mills left, could be years before that team hits playoffs, so not going to hit a team like that too harshly.

[Victor 10,911]

On 2/6/2019 at 9:17 PM, Arthur said:

No shit everyone i know talk about the VHL as the retard little brother of sim league.

But how can we be the little brother if we're older than everyone else. 

[troy 36]

17 minutes ago, Victor said:

But how can we be the little brother if we're older than everyone else. 

from what i could gather in this thread, neither grammar nor logic are exactly his strong suits

[Beketov 8,996]

1 hour ago, jRuutu said:

Hard not to think that there was nothing extra in play when deciding this punishment, could have just as easily decided to punish the team in some other way, despite what was agreed on before the season

What do you mean what was agreed on before the season? The OP of this topic has literally always stated losing playoff games as a possibility.

 

And yes, it’s olenty easy to not think nefarious shit is at play. Literally what benefit would there be for us to screw Quebec? Any time any kind of co spits you like this comes you i have the same reaponse: it would literally not be worth it for us. I’m not gonna risk the integrity of the league to screw over Quebec, or anyone else. Especially in a situation like this where we didn’t even have co trip over what happened. Had Beaviss put his backup in enough there wouldn’t have been an issue.

 

You’re trying to turn this into some huge thing that it isn’t, plain and simple.

[Josh 1,665]

This was an absolute rollercoaster. 

 

At the end of the day, all of our player's careers are left in the hands of the GM they've signed with. However this wasn't an intentional thing and it's really just an unfortunate circumstance. Beav acknowledged his fault and apologized and realistically that's as far as it needed to go. Even if it was a player's last season, there is always next season for you as a member of the community.

 

I would think a potential rule change might be helpful in avoiding this in the future. A logical solution would be: if possible, fulfill the requirement in the playoffs like we did here. If not possible as the team doesn't make it or gets knocked out, picks/financials.

 

I apologize as I realize this has gone on long enough. Just didn't want us to lose sight of why were all here to begin with.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Josh.

[diamond_ace 3,110]

1 hour ago, Victor said:

But how can we be the little brother if we're older than everyone else. 

Technically, we're second oldest. BESL in some form or another is at about 17 years, as their higher ups claim (although they've changed league formats pretty drastically a few times so it's arguable whether it's the same league). We're the oldest PT-based league though. 

[BOOM 8,722]

The Lacrosse sim league that I run is pretty old. 

[troy 36]

5 minutes ago, BOOM™ said:

The Lacrosse sim league that I run is pretty old. 

ilu uzi

[Nykonax 1,563]

tampering

[Quik 4,113]

@Josh. that’s pretty much exactly what it is though lol. Playoff teams are punished with playoff starts. Non playoff teams are punished with picks/cap space. The only reason that’s not explicitly stated is for extreme circumstances. Everyone knew the rules and that they would be enforced, especially Beaviss and I, being part of the discussion of implementing them. 

[Beaviss 4,957]

9 minutes ago, Sonnet said:

Thank you @Nykonax for a summary of this thread, in meme form.

 

 

correction: Iseult/ Palo

 

I accepted my fate

[BOOM 8,722]

4 hours ago, Nykonax said:

tampering

 

He's allowed. 

[jRuutu 2,462]

11 hours ago, Beketov said:

What do you mean what was agreed on before the season? The OP of this topic has literally always stated losing playoff games as a possibility.

 

And yes, it’s olenty easy to not think nefarious shit is at play. Literally what benefit would there be for us to screw Quebec? Any time any kind of co spits you like this comes you i have the same reaponse: it would literally not be worth it for us. I’m not gonna risk the integrity of the league to screw over Quebec, or anyone else. Especially in a situation like this where we didn’t even have co trip over what happened. Had Beaviss put his backup in enough there wouldn’t have been an issue.

 

You’re trying to turn this into some huge thing that it isn’t, plain and simple.

When you made GMs and people know this is the year when punishments will be handed out in full force - before this season?

 

There is no benefit, that is the point. Some people just like to see what happens when they do option A instead of option B. The integrity of the league should always be questioned when something like this happens.

 

If I take the time and try to be active in this league, but then when the final show is about to start with playoffs, something is directly blocking me from fully enjoying the experience, I´m going to moan about it.

 

 

[troy 36]

37 minutes ago, jRuutu said:

The integrity of the league should always be questioned when something like this happens.

"the integrity of the league should always be questioned" when actions are taken in the context of rules being broken? do i get that right?

[Beketov 8,996]

2 hours ago, jRuutu said:

When you made GMs and people know this is the year when punishments will be handed out in full force - before this season?

 

There is no benefit, that is the point. Some people just like to see what happens when they do option A instead of option B. The integrity of the league should always be questioned when something like this happens.

 

If I take the time and try to be active in this league, but then when the final show is about to start with playoffs, something is directly blocking me from fully enjoying the experience, I´m going to moan about it.

 

 

So basically you’re arguing a conspiracy and the league is against you because we didn’t decide to punish in a different way even though the way we did lunish was completely laid out as an option originally? Am I reading that right?

 

I promise you, I make no decisions with the intention of trying to piss people off. However every decision will upset someone, it’s the nature of the beast. You and Arthur got upset about the playoff games being taken but I guarantee others in the league would have seen it as getting off easy if we simply took a draft pick or something.

 

The option was there as laid out by the OP. I’m sorry if you disagree with it but it was part of the punishments that were decided upon by the league and announced before the season started. Everyone, GM’s most of all, knew about it.