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Is it time to talk about parity yet?
#1
(This post was last modified: 04-14-2020, 02:03 PM by RomanesEuntDomus.)

So is it time to talk about parity in FHM yet?  In my opinion the current standings present us with some pretty concerning signs and I think we should explore if these are just some opening hiccups while the teams figure out the new system and the strategies that come with it, or if it's a sign of a deeper systemic issue. I fear that the latter is the case and it feels like when this issue has been brought up in the past, it has often been brushed aside with "git gud"-style comments or statements like "well what do you expect, Toronto is a historically awful team", which I think is a very superficial way of looking at this issue as it is not just about one good or bad team. And just for the record, I'm on one of the teams who is doing really well right now...

Simply put, I would argue that the good teams are too good and the bad teams are too bad. There are currently four teams with a better win-percentage than the absolute best team in S52 and four with a worse win-percentage than the absolute worst team - with two of them not even having half of that teams win-rate. Over the last ten seasons, the very worst season a team had was one with 13 wins, or a 0.330 win percentage. Right now, four teams are set to land under that mark in just one seasons. Do we really think that we have four teams who are historically bad in just one season?

The gap between not just the best and the worst teams, but also between the above-average and below-average teams, has widened significantly. We are just about halfway through the season and the playoff races are essentially down to 2-3 teams already. Half a dozen teams are already pretty much safely into the postseason, while almost the same number is out already. Games end in blowouts way too often instead of being close.

These things are neither realistic nor are they fun for the people involved. They don't just concern a bad North Stars team but also three other squads whose season was basically already over a few days after it had started and it wouldn't surprise me if before long, two other teams will join them in the "eliminated" category while there are still double digit numbers of games to be played. We are looking at six teams, or almost 40% of the teams in the league, being out of postseason contention early. Six teams full of members who won't just have to sit through a long postseason but for whom large portions of the regular season will be meaningless as well. At the same time, how long will it be interesting for the people on the good teams if their season is just a walk through the park and if the interesting part doesn't start until the postseason? How long will it be fun to beat up on shitty teams who have no chance anyway and how long will it take for those bad teams to start bleeding members who will either go inactive or look for a way out to join a better team, which will only make matters worse in regards to parity?

The playing field that we had in STHS was definitely too level, too random and too unpredictable. But what we have now is too tilted and we should look into ways to correct that. One of the big advantages that the SHL always had over other leagues in my opinion was that with a little bit of skill and luck, it was almost always possible for your team to be somewhat competitive, that seasons were relatively close and that lots of teams were in interesting situations until very late. Many other leagues on the other hand have always had way more sharply pronounced cycles of rebuilding and contention, where teams regularly went into full-blown rebuilds and had to tank multiple seasons because it was their only chance to have a shot at being successful afterwards, which led to seasons where you knew even before the year started which two teams would win each conference and which four teams would have no chance, with maybe one conference, if any, even having something that resembles a playoff race. I always found that incredibly boring and thought that it involved way less skill than the SHLs approach, and I'm worried that we might be moving into that direction as well.
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#2

Parity isn’t an issue, just look at Toronto and Tampa Bay. They’re intentionally tanking with less than stellar rosters. If they actually tried to field competitive rosters, the higher end teams wouldn’t be feeding on them.

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#3

RED, i mean we have at least one team who we know is deliberately not trying to win, and another who have 3-4 sub 425 tpe defensmen with 0 tpe in defensive attributes these teams are more or less free wins. There are 5 teams in each conference that are competing for playoff spots and one each will not make it. The difference between FHM and SHTS is you are actually rewarded for building a good team and making moves to improve your team. TOR should never make playoffs and NEW should never be out with the rosters they have had the last two seasons and only one of these engines give that result. The fact that NEW is as dominate with more or less the same roster as the team that missed playoffs last season is what you want in a sim engine which was never the case in sths.
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#4

The league as a whole is constantly getting more knowledgeable about FHM, builds, etc. It's the first season, that gap will narrow pretty shortly. Will bad teams continue to be bad in FHM? Yes. But the mediocre teams will improve as game knowledge improves which will mean the standings outside a couple of bottomfeeders will be more competitive. It's a way more complex game than it used to be and there's a learning curve associated with that Let's give it some time before we call it off as a failed experiment.

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#5

04-14-2020, 02:12 PMnotorioustig Wrote: The league as a whole is constantly getting more knowledgeable about FHM, builds, etc. It's the first season, that gap will narrow pretty shortly. Will bad teams continue to be bad in FHM? Yes. But the mediocre teams will improve as game knowledge improves which will mean the standings outside a couple of bottomfeeders will be more competitive. It's a way more complex game than it used to be and there's a learning curve associated with that  Let's give it some time before we call it off as a failed experiment.

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#6
(This post was last modified: 04-14-2020, 02:39 PM by RomanesEuntDomus.)

04-14-2020, 02:10 PMWannabeFinn Wrote: Parity isn’t an issue, just look at Toronto and Tampa Bay. They’re intentionally tanking with less than stellar rosters. If they actually tried to field competitive rosters, the higher end teams wouldn’t be feeding on them.

This only accounts for 2 of the 4-6 teams though who are not competitive this season. And as I said it's not just about the very top or bottom, but also about the gap widening in the middle.

04-14-2020, 02:11 PMgolden_apricot Wrote: RED, i mean we have at least one team who we know is deliberately not trying to win, and another who have 3-4 sub 425 tpe defensmen with 0 tpe in defensive attributes these teams are more or less free wins. There are 5 teams in each conference that are competing for playoff spots and one each will not make it. The difference between FHM and SHTS is you are actually rewarded for building a good team and making moves to improve your team. TOR should never make playoffs and NEW should never be out with the rosters they have had the last two seasons and only one of these engines give that result. The fact that NEW is as dominate with more or less the same roster as the team that missed playoffs last season is what you want in a sim engine which was never the case in sths.

My answer to WBF applies here as well. To add to that, I don't know what Tampa Bay is doing at the moment but they certainly shouldn't be a team that might end up with single digit wins. They have 8 1000+ TPE players and a bunch of other decent middle-ground guys. If they or any other team are actually intentionally throwing this season then this is something that I'd say shouldn't be allowed imho and where HO needs to win. There is a difference between selling off pieces and ending up with a bad roster as a result as part of a rebuild, and having a decent roster and but losing on purpose in order to get yourself a better pick. That's a no-go and should lead to the removal of the GMs, if they don't ignore warnings to stop that practice. And if that's not what they are doing right now then that's further proof for my argument because there is simply no way a team with a roster as the Barracuda's should be so historically awful, even if their tactics are meh.

And what about Minny and Texas, they are both teams that aren't great but still have quite a few good players yet here they are, with historically bad records and their playoff hopes shattered in basically the first week. And it might not be long before the Jets and the Platoon join them in that category, they are still in the playoff race right now but a few bad games in a row will be enough to all but eliminate them before we even hit the final stretch of games. The playoff "race" right now is one with a 7 point gap between the team in the last spot and the first one out in the East and a 4 point gap in the West. Only 5 teams competing for four spots is hardly interesting, especially if one of the races is already quite close to being settled.

Quote:The difference between FHM and SHTS is you are actually rewarded for building a good team and making moves to improve your team.

This point bothers me to be honest because it makes it sound like I don't think that should be the case. I know you didn't mean it that way, but I just wanna say again that I obviously think that these things should be rewarded, but the reward for being good should not be that you win almost every single game, and the punishment for being not bad, but just somewhat below-average, should not be that you have no chance and are eliminated just a week or two into the season. Especially since these can be things that the individual player has little control over, you can put as much effort into your player as you want, if you end up on a team with a GM who isn't perfect or is still learning, or a team with a good GM but with some holes in the roster right now, then you can do pretty much nothing to stop the misery. You want to "punish" bad GMs for being bad? Sure, but you will be punishing a loooot of innocent players in the process as well as it stands now. Especially since the punishment isn't "not making the playoffs", but "never even being in the race to begin with".
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#7

04-14-2020, 02:10 PMWannabeFinn Wrote: Parity isn’t an issue, just look at Toronto and Tampa Bay. They’re intentionally tanking with less than stellar rosters. If they actually tried to field competitive rosters, the higher end teams wouldn’t be feeding on them.

I mean its not like there are ever any free agents to sign. Player movement in this league is predicated on trades and rebuilding teams that trade for players are what I call, unsmart

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#8

04-14-2020, 02:11 PMgolden_apricot Wrote: RED, i mean we have at least one team who we know is deliberately not trying to win, and another who have 3-4 sub 425 tpe defensmen with 0 tpe in defensive attributes these teams are more or less free wins. There are 5 teams in each conference that are competing for playoff spots and one each will not make it. The difference between FHM and SHTS is you are actually rewarded for building a good team and making moves to improve your team. TOR should never make playoffs and NEW should never be out with the rosters they have had the last two seasons and only one of these engines give that result. The fact that NEW is as dominate with more or less the same roster as the team that missed playoffs last season is what you want in a sim engine which was never the case in sths.

I think I should point out the grammatical difference between not trying to win and trying to not win. I’m fairly sure ml is doing the 2nd of those

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#9

I saw a lot of people who were happy about FHM on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Armada or Falcons. And you can understand why...

Wolfpack 4:2 Blizzard
Falcons 4:0 Armada 

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. STHS is much better than FHM. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to S54 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that FHM bs all the time from now.

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#10

04-14-2020, 02:59 PMst4rface Wrote: I saw a lot of people who were happy about FHM on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Armada or Falcons. And you can understand why...

Wolfpack 4:2 Blizzard
Falcons 4:0 Armada 

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. STHS is much better than FHM. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to S54 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that FHM bs all the time from now.

ah yes STHS aka if your team only shoots you win simulator

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#11
(This post was last modified: 04-14-2020, 03:12 PM by honkerrs.)

04-14-2020, 02:59 PMst4rface Wrote: I saw a lot of people who were happy about FHM on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Armada or Falcons. And you can understand why...

Wolfpack 4:2 Blizzard
Falcons 4:0 Armada 

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. STHS is much better than FHM. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to S54 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that FHM bs all the time from now.

Would you honestly say this still if it was Col that was top of the league right now and your pre season predictions correct?  Somehow I doubt it.  You do realize it speaks for parity when Armada is one of lowest average TPEs but are being successful. Maybe stick to NHL19 man

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#12

04-14-2020, 02:59 PMst4rface Wrote: I saw a lot of people who were happy about FHM on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Armada or Falcons. And you can understand why...

Wolfpack 4:2 Blizzard
Falcons 4:0 Armada 

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. STHS is much better than FHM. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to S54 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that FHM bs all the time from now.


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#13

04-14-2020, 02:59 PMst4rface Wrote: I saw a lot of people who were happy about FHM on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Armada or Falcons. And you can understand why...

Wolfpack 4:2 Blizzard
Falcons 4:0 Armada 

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. STHS is much better than FHM. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to S54 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that FHM bs all the time from now.

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#14

I saw a lot of people who were happy about NHL on this thread. After few seconds understood that they are players or coaching stuff from Lightning or Flames. And you can understand why...

Lightning 4:0 Flames

Predicted finals now. Sad part is that I am right. It's so obvious. 2017-2018 NHL is much better than 2018-2019 NHL. No matter do you like it or nah. We already know which teams will be in finals this season and which will be champions. We can just jump in to 2019-2020 to not waste time.

There are no parity. Sad part v2 is that we will have to live with that NHL bs all the time from now.

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#15

like others have said in this thread i think its hard to call one season’s results as a failed experiment measures up to 50 seasons of STHS. A lot of people, from GMs to players, are still very much in the learning process here and over time i think we’ll see better parity. HO is offering free total build changes this coming offseason for people who tried out something on their player and didn’t like it’s result, and as a whole despite the larger gap, most of the teams on the outside of the post season picture this season are the same as the ones who were outside last season, they know they’re rebuilding and they understand the position they’re in, I doubt they havent communicated to their players that they’re rebuilding and pushing to be competitive in the future but arent right now

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