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***_Blitz_*** · 04-06-2024, 10:41 PM

Hi all,

There isn't a lot to report as far as big or small changes.

Firstly, we've added @hockeyfan and @ThePyroAlpaca to the team. We're glad to have them!

To go ahead and rip the Band-Aid, we're keeping the Quick Sim Only format for the regular season for this season, which is longer than originally planned. Playoffs will still follow the format is has been, where the first round of the SHL is split, and all other rounds in both leagues are live games with few highlights.

Expanding on the new format that's coming, there's two basic concepts that I'm working on building a trial set to check out. It's built from an older file along with some newer tools that I've been working on. One is a Block Format schedule where there will be fewer, pre-taped sims. This would see, for example, Weeks 1 & 3 with 3 sim days and Weeks 2 & 4 with 2 sim days. The other, which I'm calling Lag Format, is taping only a day or two in advance. For example, as Day 10 is airing, Day 11 is in production. They both have pros and cons. There's a lot of interest on the simmer side of things to try out pre-taping since it would hopefully allow a little more wiggle room for changes in schedule without affecting the stream schedule. The intention is to test both to see which would be better and to gather notes for procedure. I've gotten pretty close to being able to start the trials, but I've hit a significant snag that has caused some major problems.

Let's look at the Block Format schedule. One of the understandings I set for these systems early on is that 20 live games would be chosen from the 660 games on the schedule in the SHL. For a block, it'd be based on the following rules:

No Matchup Can Occur Twice
Teams Must Have 1 Home & 1 Away Game
No Team May Play Twice in a Week (Sim Date + 7)
Each Sim Week Must Have 4 or 6 Games*
Each Sim Day Can Have 2 Games

* = In the SHL. SMJHL rules will likely be 4 Games a Week due to team numbers.

Picking games by hand turned out to be a tedious process and, for all of the tedium, I'd get to the end and have 3 or 4 game slots open with teams that were incompatible with each other. Picking 1 game per day for Lag Format scheduling is actually a little harder, since it narrows each pool of possible games per day. Manually setting the schedule was already an undesirable pain when it was just data entry; this sorting process is not feasible for the turnaround ahead of preseason. I've been looking at some scripting options, however, I don't know what I don't know and I'm going to be building new skills to put this together myself. If anyone has any thoughts or advice that would help in this, I'd be very happy to hear it.

The more positive news is probably not something that most people care about at all. In tandem with the format changes, I've been working on a new system of goalie scheduling and roster sheets to make offline management a little more friendly to war rooms and GM changes, as well as more accessible in general. I'm about halfway finished with the SHL, and then I'll start working on rolling it up for the SMJHL, then IIHF and WJC. Even if there's still difficulties with the schedule next season (which is not ideal), this will most likely roll out for S77.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or ideas, please DM me here or on Discord.

Wearingabear · 04-06-2024, 10:54 PM

Pre-sims and the SHL don't have a great history..

What kind of safeguards are going to be in place to ensure simmer tampering doesn't happen?

***sve7en*** · 04-06-2024, 10:54 PM

Maybe a boomer take, maybe a wrong take given what other leagues do, but not thrilled with potentially pre-recorded sims.

***RAmenAmen*** · 04-06-2024, 11:00 PM

Would pre-recording enable full sims with commentary?

***SDCore*** · 04-06-2024, 11:02 PM

As a simmer, I'm against pre recorded sims. Don't think it's a good direction for the league. I have been against and will continue to be so.

I'm not sure where this "interest" is from the simmer side. Never seen it brought up in a conversation with us. Unless I missed it. Maybe it's between HO and Blitz?

***boom*** · 04-06-2024, 11:05 PM

Echoing the not a fan of pre-recorded sims. I also hadn't really heard any chatter up to this point that this was even on the table.

***KaleSalad*** · 04-06-2024, 11:17 PM

Look forward to seeing how these changes will work out!

***PapaSorin*** · 04-06-2024, 11:37 PM

Yeahhhhhh, echo on the anti-pre simmed crowd. Two concerns:

1) match fixing. There's a history of it, we really don't wanna kick that door open again, right?

2) fixing a file error on the fly. Seasons ago, the J file/sim team somehow messed up the GFG GK goalie swap for like 9 games? This was brought up, sim team didn't pass it on to start the next sim but was able to correct for the 2nd game that sim. In prerecorded, GFG would have been stuck with a messed up goalie for an additional game. I'd really like to avoid that.

I feel like we're swinging the pendulum the wrong way on this. With all of the improvements on all other aspects of the game, I feel this is the proverbial one step back.

***Seany148*** · 04-06-2024, 11:54 PM

Fully against pre recorded. Only way I would somewhat be okay with it is with full on commentary

***Ohtaay*** · 04-07-2024, 01:50 AM

Tbh I’m good with quick sims.

***Canadice*** · 04-07-2024, 03:09 AM

I like the idea of pre-recording. For those that are worried about match fixing, whenever you record and let's say you have a set time slot to sim it should be very apparent to everyone if something isn't adding up either in terms of recording taking too long or apparent gaps in the recorded video.

We have used this process for the SSL successfully for years. The flexibility it allows for simmers and the entire production while at the same time creating opportunities to do "more" with the recording is great.

Fixing errors will have a longer delay than the current system which does require the simmers to have a clear process in place on what to check before simming. Specifically goalie starts might be good to have an automatic check against the index results if the proper goalie started the set matches so that the next simmer in line can get a warning if the proper "default" starter isn't set correctly.

Being perfect is impossible but I don't see any reason why this way of doing things would be apparently worse than what the current system is doing.

*Pyro182* · 04-07-2024, 04:41 AM

04-06-2024, 11:00 PMRAmenAmen Wrote: Would pre-recording enable full sims with commentary?

In my opinion, yes. It should enable people who arent inately good at first take commentary to be commentators. Otherwise we would be looking at a very narrow group of people to put in as commentators, would have to match their schedules with the already narrow group of simmers, and then hope for the best. Also, in terms of what I've seen from other leagues' live commentary, its cool that they have it, but I'd rather watch it muted 9/10 times.

FaraDian · 04-07-2024, 09:03 AM

Big ups for both the quick sim and pre-recording from me. Pretty rare that I watch the sim these days, especially when a 1pm start becomes a 7pm start becomes a 10pm start. Having a consistent debut time would be *chef's kiss.*

@Blitz - what are the current guidelines being tested for selecting live sims? If the pool is restricted to just conference or divisional matchups, it would reduce the options that have to be sorted through.

***Snussu*** · 04-07-2024, 09:14 AM

I dont love the idea of pre recorded sims, my biggest concern would probably be the issues that happen wont be fixed for the next sim neccecarily, and also that adding new players to the team could cause them to wonder why arent they playing on saturday when they joined the team on thursday

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