What is more fun to GM? VHLM or VHL?

[FrostBeard 1,974]

Hey there everyone who cares to read what I write. 

So, at the time of writing this sentence, it is 1.55 AM and I am having another sleepless night so what a better way to spend it then to write a Media piece for your favourite Sim experience. Not going to lie, I have thought about many things to write about but this is the thing I have wanted to touch upon for about 2.5 months now. The question for today is: What was more fun to GM - VHLM or VHL?

For those who are fairly new to the league, I was the GM of Houston Bulls from S66 to S70. I would say that I was an okay GM. Not a great one for VHLM as my real life location did not help with engagement with new recruits and people who needed help. Sometimes it took over 8 hours to answer a simple question that would have taken me 20 seconds to answer. There were some amazing players to go through my Houston Bulls at some point in their career - guys like Frederick Elmebeck, Soren Jensen and Erik Summers. I did my best to keep everybody happy and active that said, I do know that my LR was never on the top list for the activity. It might have been because I did not have an AGM at that time.

In S71, when ADV decided to step down as GM of Malmo Nighthawks, position opened up and a friend of mind suggested me for this position and well, here we are. I think I have done fairly well as GM of Nighthawks. In 4 seasons I have tried and done my best to turn this team around and help it get to be as dominant as it can possibly be. It surely helps when you have amazing loyal guys like Kendrick and OD on the squad, guys who have been here since my first season at the helm of this team. Surely, help from ADV and other, more recently acquired and drafted players make as huge of difference. Everybody here is ready to be there for their teams and their buddies. 

So, I spent 5 seasons in VHLM, now in my fourth in VHL. I guess the question of "fun" depends. I really enjoyed having to teach people about the league, help them on their way. I think it was really cool to be named GM of the year in VHLM but really, it was more about people and helping them to be better and be there for them. I think for me, VHL is different kind of fun. While VHLM was fun in terms of having new conversations, learning new things about people around me, VHL is about making wins and loses fun for everyone. VHL for me is a place to prove myself that I can GM a long term team rather than make a team that can compete for 2 seasons and then change it up with another set of new guys as it usually happened in VHLM. 

I guess VHL makes me enjoy the GMing part more. VHLM made me enjoy friendships I had with people around. Calls from Elme at 2 AM with him showing his house around and the job he put up, chats with SweetMike about our Latvian things that could have gone forever and more, more discussions with my Bulls. Eh, in the end, I think it is a lot less time consuming to be a VHL GM and currently it is better for me, in the long run - being VHLM GM is still going to be the most important thing I have done in VHL. 

[bigAL 2,176]

Cool idea for a post, especially because of your unique perspective. 
 

I see the two jobs as apples and potatoes. In the M, you’re managing people and in the bigs you’re managing players. Not that you’re not a player in the minors or a person in the majors, but that’s the focus.
 

In the M, you really have to support the individual and give them what they need to be successful in the league long term, and well after they fly away from your roost. The primary goal in the M isn’t necessarily to win this season, it’s for your players to retire after eight seasons in the V. 
 

In the pro league, you gotta manage the team. Wins and losses matter. You might end up trading a friend and that’s the way she goes sometimes. Happy players in the big leagues are winning players (or players who know their GM has a vision for success). 
 

Fun is relative, what’s rewarding is relative, and really, managing in either league will be fun and rewarding!

[McWolf 3,111]

39 minutes ago, FrostBeard said:

I guess VHL makes me enjoy the GMing part more. VHLM made me enjoy friendships I had with people around

^ my experience so far

 

VHL is a business. You plan ahead. Players are pawns. There is a human side to it, but it's toned down, compared to the M, for sure.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

VHLM for the people engagement, VHL for the team aspect.

[Banackock 7,630]

I was good M GM. 3/6.

 

I also enjoy VHL. Been so long I forget what the M is like kinda. Basically an accelerated VHL. 

[Banackock 7,630]

1 hour ago, McWolf said:

^ my experience so far

 

VHL is a business. You plan ahead. Players are pawns. There is a human side to it, but it's toned down, compared to the M, for sure.

Bears were and are very humanely. Very loyal. Big family. Ask em. I would say my last batch was the most I’ve ever had or seen on this site. Never been on a team other than S17 steelhawks maybe in SHL... many many years ago. The current group is also good. 

[Gustav 6,081]

I'll weigh in as someone who's done both.

 

 

Benefits to being a VHLM GM:

• You are THE ONE PERSON making a huge impact on the league careers of a lot of people--and that feels really good. Want to become the sole favorite member of the league for a small group of people? There is no better way to do that than to be an active, caring VHLM GM. I got so much credit for my time in Mississauga just because I happened to be active enough to answer questions and would do what I could to start conversations with the players here and there--and I'm antisocial as all hell. If I can do it, anyone can.
• It's easier. Doesn't really matter how good you are at running a team and winning theoretically shouldn't even be your goal.
• VHLM locker rooms are, in general, more active. If you want a solid team environment, that's much easier to achieve as a GM in the minors.

Drawbacks to being a VHLM GM:

• There is so much drama among the VHLM GM community. I'm not blaming this on anyone, and it's clear that fingers shouldn't even be pointed even if there are, at any one point or another, any repeat offenders. No matter who the GMs are (I saw a fair amount of turnover in my 4 seasons), there will be drama. I'd chalk that up to inexperience and a certain drive that a lot of newer GMs have to want to prove themselves worthy. Again, nobody's fault in particular, but it exists, has always existed, and probably will always exist.
• You need to maintain a high level of activity. I'm less active than I was in my time with the Hounds (still pretty active, but not spending every waking minute here and writing huge multi-claimable articles for the hell of it every week anymore) and I'm confident that if I were to be running a VHLM team with my preferred current level of activity, I'd never build up quite the same the reputation I had, nor would I have been as successful retention-wise. Granted, you don't need to spend every waking minute here--but being among the first to offer to new signups and being consistently around to answer questions from new members is paramount to success.
• There's no real team-building aspect other than a boring "alternately tank and compete" meta. There really shouldn't be any team-building aspect apart from "how active can you keep your players," for reasons I've complained about in earlier articles, but actual strategy, beyond what's obvious, really isn't a thing.

 

Benefits to being a VHL GM:

• You're generally much more respected in the league as a whole. Maybe not for your own team--everyone's been through at least one season, so you can't be the grand master teacher for many people, but more people who have never played for you will look up to you and recognize your name and player if you're a VHL GM than if you're in the minors.
• The GM community as a whole is easier to deal with. Again, this is not meant to point fingers at any VHLM GMs. At the big level, there's no need to prove yourself worthy of promotion because you've already proven yourself worthy. VHL GMs are also generally more experienced, and maturity is often a defining factor in deciding who gets a job. In general, everyone understands that everyone else is just trying to act in the best interest of their own team, and that's that. People are more willing to consider accommodating your goals if you're willing to do the same for them.
• It's a lot more fun to make moves and building a team to win is actually the goal. Long-term strategy exists! Nobody comes out of a season with exactly the same goals they thought they'd have coming into it. Things change with time and the job is dynamic. Drafting a player doesn't impact your team for that season; in some cases, it can impact your team for its entire foreseeable future, one way or another.
• You don't need to be as active as in the VHLM. You should be--and, in fact, shame on any GM who doesn't make an effort to connect with their players on a personal level--but you don't need to be there literally all the time to have a good team and be proud of your community. I'm busier than I was a year ago, and can say that being a VHL GM, in contrast to VHLM, puts me in a much better place. I don't need to feel weird about not being online if I'm caught up in a project or something for a day or two, because everyone knows what they're doing and something like that won't make people lose interest and go inactive on me. 

Drawbacks to being a VHL GM:

• It's a lot harder to build a community, and locker rooms in general are less active in the VHL. That's just how it is. There's a lot less turnover, you're not welcoming a full roster every season, and there's no constant stream of waiver signings throughout the season making things consistently new and interesting. Davos is active by VHL standards and it's still nowhere near where Mississauga was.
• Much like you can't be THE ONE PERSON for anyone in the VHL, I'd also like to add that it's a lot easier to make people dislike you as a GM. It's very difficult to manage a team in a way that makes every player happy--people want to be first line, people want to play with this one teammate, people don't like how the sims have been treating either their player or the team. There's a lot of "grass is greener elsewhere" mentality, and it's not like that isn't warranted--most members aren't GMs, and the entire definition of success for a lot of people is the performance of their own player. THAT'S OKAY AND I DON'T BLAME ANYONE FOR IT. It's just a fact of life as a VHL GM that everyone will want you to do what's best for their own player, all the time, and doing that for everyone is impossible. 
• STHS do really be like that sometimes. There's a lot more of a "more TPE = more wins" correlation in the VHLM, as teams are either good or they're not. This is a lot less evident in the VHL, where there isn't as much parity between teams at a proportional level. Think about this--in the VHLM, a 200-TPA player has a huge advantage over a 100-TPA player. Double the TPA and (probably) almost double the upgrade points. A 700-TPA player compared to a 1000-TPA player isn't quite the same--sure, one would expect someone at 1000 to consistently outperform someone at 700, but the update scale is much harsher when you get higher up and things can get muddled. Someone with Scoring at 99 already has a 48-TPA advantage over someone with it just five points lower. So things are much closer than they appear--sure, there are general trends, and there should be general trends, but there's more randomness. A team can be inexplicably bad or inexplicably good, and the sims are much more aggravating to deal with because it's often incredibly unclear what the problem is (or even if there's a problem, or you're just having bad luck).

smh I really should have written this as a media spot

[Baozi 1,635]

6 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

I'll weigh in as someone who's done both.

 

 

Benefits to being a VHLM GM:

• You are THE ONE PERSON making a huge impact on the league careers of a lot of people--and that feels really good. Want to become the sole favorite member of the league for a small group of people? There is no better way to do that than to be an active, caring VHLM GM. I got so much credit for my time in Mississauga just because I happened to be active enough to answer questions and would do what I could to start conversations with the players here and there--and I'm antisocial as all hell. If I can do it, anyone can.
• It's easier. Doesn't really matter how good you are at running a team and winning theoretically shouldn't even be your goal.
• VHLM locker rooms are, in general, more active. If you want a solid team environment, that's much easier to achieve as a GM in the minors.

Drawbacks to being a VHLM GM:

• There is so much drama among the VHLM GM community. I'm not blaming this on anyone, and it's clear that fingers shouldn't even be pointed even if there are, at any one point or another, any repeat offenders. No matter who the GMs are (I saw a fair amount of turnover in my 4 seasons), there will be drama. I'd chalk that up to inexperience and a certain drive that a lot of newer GMs have to want to prove themselves worthy. Again, nobody's fault in particular, but it exists, has always existed, and probably will always exist.
• You need to maintain a high level of activity. I'm less active than I was in my time with the Hounds (still pretty active, but not spending every waking minute here and writing huge multi-claimable articles for the hell of it every week anymore) and I'm confident that if I were to be running a VHLM team with my preferred current level of activity, I'd never build up quite the same the reputation I had, nor would I have been as successful retention-wise. Granted, you don't need to spend every waking minute here--but being among the first to offer to new signups and being consistently around to answer questions from new members is paramount to success.
• There's no real team-building aspect other than a boring "alternately tank and compete" meta. There really shouldn't be any team-building aspect apart from "how active can you keep your players," for reasons I've complained about in earlier articles, but actual strategy, beyond what's obvious, really isn't a thing.

 

Benefits to being a VHL GM:

• You're generally much more respected in the league as a whole. Maybe not for your own team--everyone's been through at least one season, so you can't be the grand master teacher for many people, but more people who have never played for you will look up to you and recognize your name and player if you're a VHL GM than if you're in the minors.
• The GM community as a whole is easier to deal with. Again, this is not meant to point fingers at any VHLM GMs. At the big level, there's no need to prove yourself worthy of promotion because you've already proven yourself worthy. VHL GMs are also generally more experienced, and maturity is often a defining factor in deciding who gets a job. In general, everyone understands that everyone else is just trying to act in the best interest of their own team, and that's that. People are more willing to consider accommodating your goals if you're willing to do the same for them.
• It's a lot more fun to make moves and building a team to win is actually the goal. Long-term strategy exists! Nobody comes out of a season with exactly the same goals they thought they'd have coming into it. Things change with time and the job is dynamic. Drafting a player doesn't impact your team for that season; in some cases, it can impact your team for its entire foreseeable future, one way or another.
• You don't need to be as active as in the VHLM. You should be--and, in fact, shame on any GM who doesn't make an effort to connect with their players on a personal level--but you don't need to be there literally all the time to have a good team and be proud of your community. I'm busier than I was a year ago, and can say that being a VHL GM, in contrast to VHLM, puts me in a much better place. I don't need to feel weird about not being online if I'm caught up in a project or something for a day or two, because everyone knows what they're doing and something like that won't make people lose interest and go inactive on me. 

Drawbacks to being a VHL GM:

• It's a lot harder to build a community, and locker rooms in general are less active in the VHL. That's just how it is. There's a lot less turnover, you're not welcoming a full roster every season, and there's no constant stream of waiver signings throughout the season making things consistently new and interesting. Davos is active by VHL standards and it's still nowhere near where Mississauga was.
• Much like you can't be THE ONE PERSON for anyone in the VHL, I'd also like to add that it's a lot easier to make people dislike you as a GM. It's very difficult to manage a team in a way that makes every player happy--people want to be first line, people want to play with this one teammate, people don't like how the sims have been treating either their player or the team. There's a lot of "grass is greener elsewhere" mentality, and it's not like that isn't warranted--most members aren't GMs, and the entire definition of success for a lot of people is the performance of their own player. THAT'S OKAY AND I DON'T BLAME ANYONE FOR IT. It's just a fact of life as a VHL GM that everyone will want you to do what's best for their own player, all the time, and doing that for everyone is impossible. 
• STHS do really be like that sometimes. There's a lot more of a "more TPE = more wins" correlation in the VHLM, as teams are either good or they're not. This is a lot less evident in the VHL, where there isn't as much parity between teams at a proportional level. Think about this--in the VHLM, a 200-TPA player has a huge advantage over a 100-TPA player. Double the TPA and (probably) almost double the upgrade points. A 700-TPA player compared to a 1000-TPA player isn't quite the same--sure, one would expect someone at 1000 to consistently outperform someone at 700, but the update scale is much harsher when you get higher up and things can get muddled. Someone with Scoring at 99 already has a 48-TPA advantage over someone with it just five points lower. So things are much closer than they appear--sure, there are general trends, and there should be general trends, but there's more randomness. A team can be inexplicably bad or inexplicably good, and the sims are much more aggravating to deal with because it's often incredibly unclear what the problem is (or even if there's a problem, or you're just having bad luck).

smh I really should have written this as a media spot

 

Nice media spot.

[Baozi 1,635]

Good topic to read on. Especially perspective-wise this gives upcomer and gm-wannabes a good look at what I imagine GMing differences will be like. Nothing too special about formatting, the flow is fine but no real standout formatting makes it kind of just a block of text. Would advise topic separation and formatting enhancement to raise the enjoyability for the reader. No real mistakes otherwise, no coloration of pics.

 

7/10

[Victor 10,525]

Would rather drink bleach than GM in the VHLM again tbh.

[Xflexz 158]

As someone thinking about being a GM for an expansion team this helps me weigh the pros and cons. Try and do some indenting of the paragraphs so it doesn't look like Legos. 9.9/10