Why can't I just create players and teams and leagues - like any other sim?

[Norbert Blotch]

I've been waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting some more .. but OOTP keeps refusing to thatch in the ability to simply create new players and teams and leagues, without any need to deal with "bloat" like salaries and all that guff .. I simply want to (like ANY other sim) be able to do the following:


(1) Create a fictional league (e.g., Franchise Greats)
(2) Populate the fictional league with teams (e.g., Canadiens, Stars etc)
(3) Populate each team with players


Boom. Done. That's all I want to do.


I have for the longest time been working on a "Legends League" which contains players from 1911 through the current season - all stats translated/adjusted to 2021-22 NHL levels. In my calculations I have taken roster sizes, relative league scoring climate, ice time (often estimated, based on several factors), etc. into account. And the results so far have provided some excellent results. Examples:


Position - Player - Goals - Assists - Points - Penalty Minutes - Ice Time

RW GUY LAFLEUR 82 57 88 145 14 20:30
RW BABE DYE 80 55 43 98 96 20:30
D HARRY CAMERON 82 23 68 91 57 24:00
D LARRY ROBINSON 79 17 66 83 29 24:00
C/LW REG NOBLE 82 21 45 66 66 20:30


Thing is, I think Action PC Hockey is clunky. Results are good, accurate enough, but my God the interface is horrendous. Clunky as heck.


Meanwhile we have FHM, which is for the most part gorgeous but my God there is a *huge* hole in the functionality - that you can't (or can't without much difficulty) create players, teams, leagues, etc.


There simply must be a re-think here. OOTP could, by simply offering the ability to turn all the NOISE off - the salaries, the coaches, all the other "deluxe" functionality - by being able to turn all that noise off, to give the ability to CREATE, my God, Action PC and Strat would be put out of business. It would be GAME OVER for the others.


But will OOTP ever do this? I hear odd rumblings about not being able to offer this kind of functionality - which is essentially a pared-down, stripped-down, simplified version of what's already offered - that this kind of thing cannot be done at a code level or whatever. I don't buy it. Not for a second. OOTP can totally do this: it can totally offer the ability to "go Create Mode" - to allow users to create players teams leagues etc. - to take the best of what Action PC (and in baseball Diamond Mind) offers - and add it to what FHM already does, which is provide that GM experience.


Would anyone with any skin in this particular game care to comment? Why can't I just click on Simple Mode or Create Mode or something - and just ditch all the "noise" - the GM and salary and dream team card guff - and just get down to creating my dream league consisting of teams and players that I created - no simming out year by year stuff, just having a league full of players that I can use to play one-off games, best-of-sevens, tourneys, or whatever the hell else I want to do.


When will this be offered? Do so and I - and likely thousnads more like me - will be FHM purchasers every single year for life. As it is, I'm at version 7 and I won't be handing another red cent to OOTP until they add this functionality. And I'm FAR from alone on this.

[boscoJJ]

What version are you playing?
There is Custom Game option

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by Norbert Blotch

I've been waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting .. and waiting some more .. but OOTP keeps refusing to thatch in the ability to simply create new players and teams and leagues, without any need to deal with "bloat" like salaries and all that guff .. I simply want to (like ANY other sim) be able to do the following:


(1) Create a fictional league (e.g., Franchise Greats)
(2) Populate the fictional league with teams (e.g., Canadiens, Stars etc)
(3) Populate each team with players


Boom. Done. That's all I want to do.


I have for the longest time been working on a "Legends League" which contains players from 1911 through the current season - all stats translated/adjusted to 2021-22 NHL levels. In my calculations I have taken roster sizes, relative league scoring climate, ice time (often estimated, based on several factors), etc. into account. And the results so far have provided some excellent results. Examples:


Position - Player - Goals - Assists - Points - Penalty Minutes - Ice Time

RW GUY LAFLEUR 82 57 88 145 14 20:30
RW BABE DYE 80 55 43 98 96 20:30
D HARRY CAMERON 82 23 68 91 57 24:00
D LARRY ROBINSON 79 17 66 83 29 24:00
C/LW REG NOBLE 82 21 45 66 66 20:30


Thing is, I think Action PC Hockey is clunky. Results are good, accurate enough, but my God the interface is horrendous. Clunky as heck.


Meanwhile we have FHM, which is for the most part gorgeous but my God there is a *huge* hole in the functionality - that you can't (or can't without much difficulty) create players, teams, leagues, etc.


There simply must be a re-think here. OOTP could, by simply offering the ability to turn all the NOISE off - the salaries, the coaches, all the other "deluxe" functionality - by being able to turn all that noise off, to give the ability to CREATE, my God, Action PC and Strat would be put out of business. It would be GAME OVER for the others.


But will OOTP ever do this? I hear odd rumblings about not being able to offer this kind of functionality - which is essentially a pared-down, stripped-down, simplified version of what's already offered - that this kind of thing cannot be done at a code level or whatever. I don't buy it. Not for a second. OOTP can totally do this: it can totally offer the ability to "go Create Mode" - to allow users to create players teams leagues etc. - to take the best of what Action PC (and in baseball Diamond Mind) offers - and add it to what FHM already does, which is provide that GM experience.


Would anyone with any skin in this particular game care to comment? Why can't I just click on Simple Mode or Create Mode or something - and just ditch all the "noise" - the GM and salary and dream team card guff - and just get down to creating my dream league consisting of teams and players that I created - no simming out year by year stuff, just having a league full of players that I can use to play one-off games, best-of-sevens, tourneys, or whatever the hell else I want to do.


When will this be offered? Do so and I - and likely thousnads more like me - will be FHM purchasers every single year for life. As it is, I'm at version 7 and I won't be handing another red cent to OOTP until they add this functionality. And I'm FAR from alone on this.

You can though, it's just not as simplified as you'd like.

[reverist]

A few things that struck me about your post:

1. So, your official take on this is that the devs are lying to you or are so incompetent they don't know why they can't offer it? You're asking for some other explanation, like they've been hiding in a smoke-filled room laughing at our collective ignorance, and now they are willing to tell you the real reason.

2. You've been a loyal customer, but that loyalty looks like it's about two years out of date. At present, you're not a customer who's withholding purchasing the current product, you're a former customer. I mean, that's still something.

3. You could always make your own game! After all, it seems like you know that this is something that is quite easily done, and you know what you're wanting. So make your own historical game that fulfills your wants and needs!

[Castleview]

As someone who mostly plays historical mode, I kind of agree with this. Unless you have the PCHL/WHL continue after 1926 , there is no league to compete with the NHL until the WHA comes along in 1972.
I want to be able to either create a generic rival league, or have the WHA start up anytime I want, and I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel by recreating everything in a custom setup.

Also even using the PCHL/WHL there is no way to amend the draft or salary rules, so only a small number of Western Canada players get picked each year, and you can give teams 10 times the budgets of NHL teams but they won't try to offer inflated salaries and barely any NHL players will sign with them.

I realise there will likely be coding issues if unlimited changes were allowed, but simply creating another league which is not too dissimilar to the NHL should be possible.