05-25-2022, 01:57 PMtrella Wrote:

05-25-2022, 05:51 AMMemento Mori Wrote: Maybe I'm being pedantic but SHL definitely isn't a be a pro experience, maybe it was once. I find sim leagues to be a very blank slate in terms of how they enable people to engage with them, even more so now that there's a web of affiliated sim leagues where many of us are in several of them. The way some people play represents that kind of experience, but you have users who neglect their own player and primarily want to GM/take on other important league jobs and you have players who are quite clearly here for the locker rooms/community rather than their player's success.

In other leagues I've had clear plans for my players, but I've never watched a hockey game - I joined because lots of my sim league friends said this was their favourite league, and that ties into the point about builds. I'm here for the locker rooms and every time I have sufficient TPE, I ask my GM how to spend it and ask them to build whatever player helps the team most. If someone asked me what type of player I wanted to build, I would have no idea. I just want to help the team.

I get why people like you and RED find the importance and influence of GMs frustrating, but I wonder how many people feel the same way as you and would prefer if it was more individualistic.

I understand what you’re saying, but I totally disagree. This league is based on its players. If nobody created players, there would be no league. When we were on STHS, GMing still mattered a lot. The GMs that made the best trades, signed the best FAs, and drafted the best generally succeeded. However, in the current state of the league that stuff has taken a backseat. Of course, its all still important, but it pales in comparison to the worth of sim knowledge and meta knowledge. This has taken all of the power and fun out of the average player’s hands.

Basically I think that its really fucking stupid that a small minority of users are really all that’s important in this league anymore. The players don’t really matter. I think this is especially clear when looking at media. There used to be media being posted constantly even when the league was much smaller. Media about player backstories, stats, rivalries, anything you can think of. But that really doesn’t happen anymore, and I don’t think it’s because there’s “too much money” going around. It’s because being a normal player in this league sucks and theres no interesting player builds, rivalries besides the top teams, or really anything that makes players feel like they have their OWN player.

There’s no reason to test FA unless you want to get on one of HAM/BUF/TEX/CHI. People left teams for BAP/TBB/LAP/etc, all good teams, but they all had no chance to win because of lack of sim knowledge. Currently all the marbles lie on the GMs and not the players and for a league that only exists because everyone makes a player, this makes no sense. If people wanted to join a GM league for FHM, they would. There are many.

Your approach to the league isn’t wrong either. It’s totally okay to just want to help the team. But this shouldn’t be a mandatory mindset to have any chance of success in this league.

The league isn’t fun for players anymore, and it wasn’t fun to GM either, at least in my experience.

Evan Winter
Edmonton Blizzard
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