Community opinions on improving the player store.

[Peace 1,562]

Just because some people need to see this:  @Members

 

Beketov:

“I, Beketov, commish of the VHL, do hereby and in full conscience give @Peace permission and authority to gather public opinions on ways in which to improve the store”

 

So I was in a debate with @Beketov and @Beaviss (among others) on the Discord about giving money a purpose beyond just saving for depreciation fighters and the occasional uncapped TPE / capped TPE packages. At the moment it's league standard to just accept the lowest contract available because the salary is seasonally readjusted based on the TPA brackets, that artificial inflation could be totally eroded if money actually had some value to the eyes of the individuals. As Beketov said on the Discord, 'money is only meaningful if what you can get with it is worth it.' and he's entirely right. 

Right now a lot of people save for the depreciation fighters, some save for experience (oddly), some save for the uncapped TPE packages, and some use their money for the first generation purchases - but those are typically the more common ones, including free weeks, but they're not actually serving any purpose other than money sinks. The player store offers a woefully insufficient amount of options that actually give the virtual money we earn from our virtual contracts any purpose at all, so I wanted to create this thread to collect community opinions on ways to improve the store and make contracts actually worth while.

 

Contracts are a larger part of hockey, we all debate the value of a player from time to time (10, 000, 000 contracts are overpayments!) and those debates should happen here too. 

I have a few ideas in mind, and with @Beketov supporting a league wide discussion in favor of improving the store, it should be an interesting way to collect community feed back. 

Also... Beketov is in favor of blowing up the player store and building it back up from the foundations up. 

Discuss! 

[Beaviss 4,958]

im here before the storm

[pennypenny 227]

why the fuck did you tag all members you neanderthal.

 

also i endrose this idea. please a ccept it.

[frescoelmo 1,282]

inb4 robbie attempts to troll

[Cxsquared 455]

I agree both contracts and the store seem kinda useless accept for deprecation fighters. Not sure what the solution to this problem is, but it does seem like a problem.

[Dil 1,763]

/tableflip

[Jbeezy76 396]

It would be nice to see larger TPE package deals for the average VHL member. Like where you can actually buy in multiples of 10 TPE.The system as it is makes it a very slow build.  I mean with an Weekly average of 12 TPE  ( unless you work for the VHL) and since you have to pay 5 TPE just to only go up one attribute point.I think it would make the general player  population more competitive. I think this could help not only with a quicker build but also would allow to save earlier for deprecation. I think your average VHL player would appreciate being able to make more TPE per week considering the VHL staff has the advantage over the General Population when it comes to upgrading at a faster speed. Just makes sense to have a level playing field for all members. 

[Steve 1,954]

Any improvement is just that, an improvement.

[Josh 1,674]

28 minutes ago, Peace said:

Also... Beketov is in favor of blowing up the player store and building it back up from the foundations up. 

 

You can't make me.

[DMaximus 1,046]

I think for starters, there needs to be way, way, way more things available to purchase.

By the look of the existing store items, it seems like it's currently unwanted that people should be able to buy straight TPE or attribute points. I think that needs to change. We need to let people buy straight TPE and attribute points. Of course it should be way more expensive then the TPE you can purchase by doing tasks. The current rate for purchasable bonus TPE that you receive in addition to completing tasks is $500,000 per TPE. Maybe that cost comes down a little bit, make those purchases more enticing, which would also help motivate people to create content.

 

A possible cost breakdown:

Add 1 uncapped TPE to a point task : $250,000 (purchasable any number of times during a season and stackable (i.e. you can use 6 on the same point task)

Add 1 uncapped TPE: $500,000 ( again, no maximum amount of purchases )

Add 1 Attribute point: $4,000,000 

Those prices might be too expensive still.

 

I think we could also look at selling temporary boosts, something like add 5 attribute points to a specific attribute for the next 10 games: $2,000,000

 

Of course if you really want to get into purchasable items, you can always go down the equipment enhancement route, like buying skates that give +2 SK or a stick that adds +3 SC or +4 PA.

 

For any of this to work, the salary cap would probably need to increase significantly as well. To allow players to even ask for anything above the minimum salary, which I think almost everyone just accepts their player is going to get the minimum salary at this point.

[Berocka 2,263]

Question why do we need contracts and a store. Honestly not being stupid here I am genuinely curious. It appears that the most important part of the contracts is for salary cap and with most people taking minimum why not make the salary cap a tpe based thing where the first number on your tpe is how much you're worth. I.e 256 tpe is worth 2 team cap points and have a cap on how many team cap points you can have as a team at the beginning of the season. Same as how the salary works atm.

[Enorama 2,039]

5 minutes ago, Jbeezy76 said:

I mean with an Weekly average of 12 TPE  ( unless you work for the VHL)

 

The grand majority of league jobs count against the weekly cap. The only ones that don't are ones that pay out just a little bit each year.

 

And the average for someone capping would actually be quite a bit higher, closer to 15, once you factor in all the uncapped opportunities.

[Josh 1,674]

Purchase breakdown since store was portalized from most to least popular:

 

The First Generation - 100 purchases

Free Week - 98 purchases

First Gen Doubles - 85 purchases

TPA Recall - 39 purchases

Experience Points - 25 purchases

Still Kicking - 23 purchases

The 'Jaromir Jagr' - 22 purchases

Position Switch - 17 purchases

Old But Not Forgotten - 16 purchases

Uncapped TPE Packages - 13 purchases

TPA Reroll - 13 purchases

PT Doubles Week - 9 purchases

Full Doubles Week - 8 purchases

Award Prediction Multiplier - 6 purchases

Point Task Upgrade - 1 purchase

VHL.com/Radio Upgrade - 0 purchases

 

[Jbeezy76 396]

@Enoramayou only quoted one point I had. I still think having the ability to buy uncapped TPE packages starting at 10 TPE would be great for the average player.Im sure I’m not the only player that thinks so. 

[Enorama 2,039]

Just now, Jbeezy76 said:

@Enoramayou only quoted one point I had. I still think having the ability to buy uncapped TPE packages starting at 10 TPE would be great for the average player.Im sure I’m not the only player that thinks so. 

 

You can already buy uncapped TPE packages up to 20 TPE. I've bought several of them.

[Jbeezy76 396]

@EnoramaCan you send a link to that cuz obviously I didn’t know of this option 

[Beketov 9,107]

10 minutes ago, Josh said:

 

You can't make me.

FWIW I basically just meant what’s available to purchase. It would work the same so the main code wouldn’t change, just the items available.

[Beketov 9,107]

Just now, Jbeezy76 said:

@EnoramaCan you send a link to that cuz obviously I didn’t know of this option 

Store is all on the portal now, just scroll through.

[Erik Summers 451]

It would be a total rework of two systems, but here is my proposal.

 

Step 1.

Eliminate Pension/Welfare

Currently, many player's primary source of TPE is for doing nothing but claiming it each week. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we need to eliminate this source of free TPE to make the a new source attractive.

 

Step 2.

Simplify Salary Brackets

Get rid of the "Prime" Salary Bracket. It is unnecessary in this new system.

 

Step 3.

Greatly reduce the cost of "Free Week"s in the player store

Instead of Welfare/Pension being the main source of TPE for less active players, instead make them spend a portion of their contract each week to support themselves.

 

Step 4.

Mildly reduce the cost of depreciation fighters

The idea is, active players should be able to afford depreciation fighters on minimum contracts.

 

The Pros

• Teams will only be able to support a limited number of minimally active players because the less active they are, the bigger the contract that will be required to keep them good.
• Increase the value of active/contributing players to their teams. This will make drafting players more nuanced as they will have value beyond just position/TPE.
• I think this will make team management more "fun" by giving GMs more options and strategic opportunities in team building.

The Cons

• I don't know, that's why I' posting it here, because I think I have all the answer. Prove me wrong.

[Josh 1,674]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

FWIW I basically just meant what’s available to purchase. It would work the same so the main code wouldn’t change, just the items available.

 

Yeah, I'm fully behind that. 

[Jbeezy76 396]

@Enoramabut that’s very expensive. That’s $10 million for 20 TPE. I don’t have that kind of $$ even having saved most everything. Lol it should be cheaper then Obviously you could restrict limits on it and have rules for how many times you can buy in a month or what not. Thanks for the info though I appreciate it. I’m just trying to help the average player like myself. 

[Peace 1,562]

Here are some of my ideas, including quirky titles and everything! 

 

Beketov is in favor of sealing the record books from S1 - S69, starting S70 fresh with a new set of records for us all to break. The 'modern VHL' so to speak. These ideas are with that in mind. 

One More Year! - $15, 000, 000 1/career
You're not ready to retire yet! Fans are chanting 'One more year, one more year, one more year!' and you intend to give it to them. Purchase another year for your career at the end of the eighth (or ninth) season. Once per career, must be bought during the off-season before your final season. Depreciation is either 9% or 11% dependent on 'I'm not old!' purchase. If you purchased 'I'm not old!' you depreciate at 11% regardless of depreciation fighters except for 'The 'Jaromir Jagr' store purchase - choose wisely.

 

I'm not old! - $15, 000, 000 1/career
You're only five seasons old? That's not old! Buy another year of prime-time eligibility (with no depreciation), increasing your career clock to nine seasons. Be warned though, depreciation on your final three seasons are 4, 7 and 9% instead of 3, 5 and 7%. Must be purchased before the start of your sixth season, and can only be purchased once per career, can be purchased alongside One More Year!... if you have the money to do so.

God give me strength! - $4, 000, 000 1/season
Add five attribute points to your strength category. 

God give me wisdom! - $4, 000, 000 1/season
Add five attribute points to your leadership category.

 

 

Just some of the ones I've come up with. Thoughts? 
 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Peace

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Only have the opportunity to chime in quickly, but does anyone want to guess what the player store purchases were before they were re-worked?  

 

And the common complaint was "you should be able to buy something else rather than just straight TPE - that's boring and too easy and doesn't promote activity"

 

The cyclical nature of things is just funny.

[Corco 1,275]

Let us gamble our contracts on games and shit

[Gustav 6,472]

Honestly? I'll probably get a lot of disagreement for saying this, but I am absolutely not in favor of adding more options or just saying "let's go make everything cheaper" without actually knowing what's going on. Why should we just continue to make free--or practically free--points more and more available? If my $1 bonus in S66 ends up being worth something (not that I'm saying it will), I'll be quite disappointed. From the perspective of my own player, though I'll never say no to some more TPE, there's nothing that grinds my gears more than people just saying "make it easier for me to just pick up points," because I like to think I work hard for every point I earn (sometimes). You'll see that I'm in favor of some price changes, but let's be informed about what we're doing before we do it. That information is what I'll attempt to give below...

 

My build is complete right now, at 976 TPA. Let's say that I buy the "Old But Not Forgotten" depreciation fighter in my last season, for $12 million. That makes it so that I'm losing 242 TPA rather than 321. So, in short, that's just over $150k per TPE. Same goes for the other purchases--the "Still Kicking" fighter yields about $186k per TPE, while the Jagr gets me about $146k per TPE in my 7th season and a whoppingly low $125k even per TPE in my 8th. If we end up shifting prices of everything else lower to make things match, you'd have to get to about this level before it would even begin to be worth it. The best value for an uncapped TPE package (in other words, the largest one) comes out to $500k per TPE. So, for a TPE whore like me, yes, the depreciation fighters are far and away the best purchase, and any other purchase in the store would be stupid (except for The First Generation, which is but $100k per TPE).

 

Let's take a look at some other players. I took a look at Alex Pearson's build at 467 TPA and ran the numbers. What we've got here is a bit closer--the 8th season fighter is around $316k per TPE, the 7th season fighter is about $421k per TPE, and the Jagr is either $280k or $233k per TPE, depending on which season you're looking at. For someone who isn't a TPE whore, the numbers are a bit closer to balanced, though still not approaching the value of the uncapped TPE package at $500k per TPE (I guess I'll tag @Jayrad28 here as this could be valuable info).

 

We have to recognize the fact that we're dealing with percentages versus fixed amounts here--if TPE whoring is your thing, then yes, you'll be more affected by depreciation. But does that mean that we should lower the prices of everything else to work out to $125k per TPE? Absolutely not. I'm perfectly fine with price adjustment, but let's not cater to the super-actives and make things stupid easy to buy. Instead, I'd like to propose prices that have been worked out to be fair and balanced to a player who's more of the mid-range variety, prices which have been adjusted to match the per-TPE cost of depreciation fighters for such a player rather than that of a super-active one:

 

VHL PLAYER STORE PRICES: THE ALEX PEARSON MODEL

 

The First Generation: $500k (OK as it is)

First Gen Doubles: $1,000,000 (~$167k per TPE, also makes it possible to buy both with a VHLM contract)

Position Switch: $3,000,000 (OK as it is, maybe even make it more expensive. People move around all the time and that's not necessarily good in my opinion)

TPA Reroll: $6,000,000 (OK as it is)

TPA Recall: $500,000 (OK as it is)

Free Week: $1,000,000 (OK as is)

Point Task Upgrade: $1,000,000 (This should not be $3m. A free week is $1m for 6 TPE for free, this is $1m for 8 TPE and you have to do stuff to get it. I think having the price be the same here is fine)

VHL.com/Radio Upgrade: Same as above, $1,000,000, for the same reason.

Award Prediction Multiplier: $1,000,000 to double, $2,000,000 to triple. (If you get 7 predictions right--which almost nobody does--under the current system you'd be at $357k per TPE. It's simply not worth it. This gives you a good value of around $143k per TPE if you nail your predictions with 7, and if you only get about 2 correct it's about $500k per TPE--not good, but not incredibly outlandish)

Experience Points: I have no clue what experience even does so I'll stay out of this one. Someone can do the test simming and figure out whether this is worth it.

Full Doubles Week: $3,000,000 (This comes out to $250k per TPE if you max out, significantly more reasonable than the current $625k per TPE of the current system)

PT Doubles Week: $2,000,000 (This is $333k per TPE, while the current option is a whopping $667k per TPE)

Uncapped TPE Packages:

1 TPE x 5: $2,000,000 ($400k per TPE)

2 TPE x 5: $3,500,000 ($350k per TPE)

4 TPE x 5: $6,000,000 ($300k per TPE)

These prices are scaled to fit the cost of the depreciation fighters for a lower-TPE player--please, let's not scale them to fit the cost of depreciation fighters for a TPE whore! That would lead us farther down the "handing out free TPE" path we've gone down a bit already.

 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.