Issues with Swiss NLA

[Maetu]

Hi

I've bought the game a while ago while, but gave it up back then. With the new update and the implementation of the NLA I wanted to give it a new try. Unfortunately I've already found two issues with that league:

-Rosters are restricted to 23 players. Theres no such thing in reality. With only a youth team where I can send players it's already impossible to continue as I signed 2 players and am now over the limit... Is there a way to edit the league, so I can have more players?

-The foreigner rule is not implemented correctly. As of now you are only allowed to have 4 non swiss players on your team. In reality the 4 player restriction only counts against dressed players. So while a NLA team is only allowed to dress 4 players they can have up to 8 foreign players on their roster (actually they're allowed to license up to 8 players per season, but implementing it this way would probably be way to complicated).

Originally Posted by Maetu

Hi

I've bought the game a while ago while, but gave it up back then. With the new update and the implementation of the NLA I wanted to give it a new try. Unfortunately I've already found two issues with that league:

-Rosters are restricted to 23 players. Theres no such thing in reality. With only a youth team where I can send players it's already impossible to continue as I signed 2 players and am now over the limit... Is there a way to edit the league, so I can have more players?

-The foreigner rule is not implemented correctly. As of now you are only allowed to have 4 non swiss players on your team. In reality the 4 player restriction only counts against dressed players. So while a NLA team is only allowed to dress 4 players they can have up to 8 foreign players on their roster (actually they're allowed to license up to 8 players per season, but implementing it this way would probably be way to complicated).

I'd imagine the foreigner limit is just 'version 1 limitations' as for the restricted players that could be a mistake! Jeff will know best.

[Alessandro]

Originally Posted by Maetu

-The foreigner rule is not implemented correctly. As of now you are only allowed to have 4 non swiss players on your team. In reality the 4 player restriction only counts against dressed players. So while a NLA team is only allowed to dress 4 players they can have up to 8 foreign players on their roster (actually they're allowed to license up to 8 players per season, but implementing it this way would probably be way to complicated).

Yes, there is a similar problem in the KHL. It should be addressed in the next patch, where the lineup problems will be dealt with

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Maetu

Hi

I've bought the game a while ago while, but gave it up back then. With the new update and the implementation of the NLA I wanted to give it a new try. Unfortunately I've already found two issues with that league:

-Rosters are restricted to 23 players. Theres no such thing in reality. With only a youth team where I can send players it's already impossible to continue as I signed 2 players and am now over the limit... Is there a way to edit the league, so I can have more players?

The 23-man limit helps the AI by keeping the roster to a manageable size, but you're right, it's a problem because you can't send the excess older guys to the junior team. Right now, there's no way to edit it. But what I think what I'll have to do is give the NLA teams an extra "farm team" to represent the places they'd normally loan senior players to. Ideally, I'd make it the NLB teams, but that's likely to cause issues if one of them gets promoted, so I'll have to find alternatives. That way, you'll have a place to move the guys who aren't playing regularly.

-The foreigner rule is not implemented correctly. As of now you are only allowed to have 4 non swiss players on your team. In reality the 4 player restriction only counts against dressed players. So while a NLA team is only allowed to dress 4 players they can have up to 8 foreign players on their roster (actually they're allowed to license up to 8 players per season, but implementing it this way would probably be way to complicated).

Yeah, it's set to 4 for both to prevent teams from accumulating 8 foreigners and just sitting 4 of them out all year, which isn't realistic (and crowds Swiss players off the roster.) There are a few leagues that have to handle import rules that way. I think it may be possible to implementing the per-season license limits eventually, though -that's really the ideal way to handle it.

[Alessandro]

Originally Posted by JeffR

The 23-man limit helps the AI by keeping the roster to a manageable size, but you're right, it's a problem because you can't send the excess older guys to the junior team. Right now, there's no way to edit it. But what I think what I'll have to do is give the NLA teams an extra "farm team" to represent the places they'd normally loan senior players to. Ideally, I'd make it the NLB teams, but that's likely to cause issues if one of them gets promoted, so I'll have to find alternatives. That way, you'll have a place to move the guys who aren't playing regularly.

Well, we could ask our Swiss researcher (do we have one?) to create junior teams, pretty much like I did for the KHL...
Also, for now maybe we can put the roster limit to 25 to allow for a couple of extra players. The KHL has more than 23 players in the roster.

[archibalduk]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Yeah, it's set to 4 for both to prevent teams from accumulating 8 foreigners and just sitting 4 of them out all year, which isn't realistic (and crowds Swiss players off the roster.) There are a few leagues that have to handle import rules that way. I think it may be possible to implementing the per-season license limits eventually, though -that's really the ideal way to handle it.

I was planning on suggesting this once I have compiled my UK testing notes for the PT, but I'll post this here seeing as it is relevant:

The UK EIHL has a very similar issue. There is no roster limit on the number of imports, but there is a limit on the number dressed (11 imports). The game cannot currently handle this because the AI teams will go berserk signing imports as there's no roster limit - in the same way the AI will sign 8 imports in the NLA and sit 4 out for the season.

I think a simple work around would be for the AI to be restricted on the number of imports it signs according the dressed import limit rather than the roster import limit. This would allow the human user to play according to the correct rules whilst also ensuring the AI coaches don't go overboard on the import signings.

[Maetu]

Originally Posted by JeffR

The 23-man limit helps the AI by keeping the roster to a manageable size, but you're right, it's a problem because you can't send the excess older guys to the junior team. Right now, there's no way to edit it. But what I think what I'll have to do is give the NLA teams an extra "farm team" to represent the places they'd normally loan senior players to. Ideally, I'd make it the NLB teams, but that's likely to cause issues if one of them gets promoted, so I'll have to find alternatives. That way, you'll have a place to move the guys who aren't playing regularly.

Beside the problems this would cause to promotions it also wouldn't reflect how it works in reality. Swiss teams dont have farmteams (except for ZSC and their farmteam GCK). Although some nla teams have contracts with lower league teams (including teams from NLB), they usually rather loan young players to those teams, so they can get experience against older players. As far as I know older players hardly get loaned to lower level leagues. Teams that have older players they dont want anymore often agree with these players to terminate the contract so they can find a new team (examples this season: Domenichelli from Lugano to Bern, Burkhalter from Rapperswil to Biel). This often happens with foreign players as well, which is probably the reason why the rule is set to 8 foreign licenses and not to 8 foreign players on the roster (so teams cant just keep getting new foreign players and kick out the ones they dont want).


As these restrictions seem to be a problem in multiple european leagues wouldnt it make sense to code the the ai to have reasonable sized rosters even without a roster limitation (somewhere around 25 players probably)? This way player based teams would still be able to fill their roster the way they want it. I imagine a 23 player roster to be very hard to handle anyway without having farm teams.

Another problem that could come with a limited roster is that it prevents AI teams from calling up junior players if their roster is already filled. I dont know how the AI behaves and if they call up junior players at all, but in reality swiss teams often have a couple of junior players that get their chance playing on the pro team during a season.

[Alessandro]

Maetu, thanks for your insights on European hockey. We Euro guys are doing our best in modelling our leagues, still they are far from being perfect.

[Maetu]

Originally Posted by Alessandro

Maetu, thanks for your insights on European hockey. We Euro guys are doing our best in modelling our leagues, still they are far from being perfect.

Well I'm happy to give insights if it helps making the game better

I also understand that its very hard to make European leagues operating the way they should as the league systems in Europe are very different to how they work in North America. Even the respective countries in Europe often have very different ways how they function. I'd imagine it to be very hard for an ai to reflect all the different rules and ways leagues operate. But I still hope to one day be able to play FHM and have a realistic feeling of being a gm in any league!

Edit: Another issue I've found is that the player salaries seem to be a bit odd in NLA. Does it make sense to give feedback on them at this point?

[Alessandro]

Originally Posted by Maetu

Well I'm happy to give insights if it helps making the game better

I also understand that its very hard to make European leagues operating the way they should as the league systems in Europe are very different to how they work in North America. Even the respective countries in Europe often have very different ways how they function. I'd imagine it to be very hard for an ai to reflect all the different rules and ways leagues operate. But I still hope to one day be able to play FHM and have a realistic feeling of being a gm in any league!

Edit: Another issue I've found is that the player salaries seem to be a bit odd in NLA. Does it make sense to give feedback on them at this point?

Well, why not. Salaries look odd in most leagues, however, go on.

[geckon]

BTW, there is a subforum for reporting data issues: FHM - Beta Data Issues - OOTP Developments Forums