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***luke*** · 05-23-2023, 09:50 PM

A follow up to Has Parity Improved: An Analysis of the FHM Era of the SHL, this is going to be an exploration on how much randomness STHS had, compared to what I feel like most people’s gut feelings were during that time.

So let me give you the setup and methodology I had to achieve this.

Getting the standings and playoff results for each team was simple, I already collected that many years ago, we are fine there.

The tricky part to get was how much applied TPE a player had for the seasons. Now, we only have ratings data from S28-S50, as the rest before is lost to history, so that will be the range we are going to be looking at.

The method for calculating that tpe? Well, lucky for us, S28 also came with the final update scale change in STHS history, so it lined up perfectly for me to use that. Using that update scale I was able to get a rough estimate of applied TPE for each player. For calculating weaknesses, I ranked the 8 weaknesses on what I thought most people would have, and then calculated the rest of the attributes by the normal scale. So for weaknesses, I ranked them by Checking, Endurance, Strength, Scoring, Passing, Puck Handling, skating, then defense. And for the most part, it worked out well. I’m sure there are mistakes here and there, but I feel like for 96% of people the applied TPE is mostly correct. Also had to adjust fighting and Discipline for the enforcers as well, but for the most part they were easy to detect as well.

Ok, so from there, we got everything we needed to gather that data up. All you have to do is have the team and have the season, average all the skaters TPE together and boom, there you have the average TPE for each team… Except, we had to have 3 filler roster players on the team. Ok so that part was pretty easy to fix as well, you just order by TPE, and then cut off the 3 lowest TPE players on each team, and there you go, the average TPE.

TABLEAU
Google Sheets

Ok, lets check how we did, for teams and players involved.

Individual Players

Lets check out some individual players, and see their journey on the SHL.

Note: This is applied TPE

[Image: image.png]

Not that bad right? Ok so what do we do with the information. Like I said earlier we can get the average TPE a team had at any given season, which will be helpful. So lets take a look

I present to you, randomness

[Image: Sheet_2.png]

Now, it does show a clear trend. Usually when you have more average TPE = Better placement in the standings.

Yet, there is a lot of clear outliers. For example, for the presidents trophy, the S48 Tampa bay Barracuda, with 744 Average TPE, won the presidents trophy.

[Image: image.png]

The best part? They were the worst team in terms of Average TPE, but by 100 TPE! Isn’t that the magic of STHS though, just letting the sim gods do its thing and pop off. But… what if you were on the other side, not would also sting just as much. So lets take a look at the best team to miss the playoffs.

May I present to you

[Image: image.png]

The S52 New England Wolfpack! Sporting a 1276 average TPE, finishing 9th in the league, and just missed the playoffs.

But that's enough examples, it is fun to look at the past and see it, but what about aggregate numbers?

[Image: image.png]

STHS certainly had its randomness, but it did have some level of “if you do good you will win”, but there are always exceptions, as you can tell with the min and max. In some ways, that’s great! Any team can win when you enter the playoffs, which is beautiful to see. That is something that I do miss about STHS. But on the other hand, imagine being the team that had the 1276 average TPE, and missed the playoffs… like New England did. The frustration builds up as you as a GM and a team can’t do anything and watch you lose games. Thats the randomness I don’t miss, but a randomness that was needed for the playoffs to work. A double edged sword

Conclusion

STHS, was for better or for worse, made by a French canadian.

We used his engine not in the way we are supposed to, like we are doing to FHM now. A lot of his attributes he created basically didn't impact the sim at all, but others he made were basically OP, like Defense, Scoring, Passing, Skating. And the way we set up the builds, made it so that we hit those OP levels at like 1300-1400 TPE, so it made the playing level a lot more even.
[Image: image.png]

Basically another 600/700 TPE you add just to add. Though some secondary attributes like Strength, Endurance, and Faceoffes helped. But they really didnt move the needle past 1300-1400. Just the randomness kinda made you pop off or didnt.

On top of the randomness, sometimes a goalie gets hot or cold. Or your team just falls apart for no reason.

There was both a beauty and a curse with STHS, not a perfect engine, but one that made the league enjoyable. The limited attributes that actually had an impact on the game (Defense, Scoring, Passing, Skating, Puck Handling) made it limited in the way of unique builds, and linear in a way of, if you wanted to hit more, you put it into checking. But checking was bad because you put up a lot more PIM’s. The stats that it outputted was limited as well, and a lot less player identity exists back then as it does now. Then, once passing became irrelevant through some fun circumstances, leading down to really 4 important stats, we switched to FHM.

At least in FHM, you can build a bit more unique of a player, and your role plays a lot in how you play, giving it a lot more flexibility, if you choose so. As well as adding advanced stats, takeaways, giveaways, to help make your player feel more important. Now the live sim is not perfect at all, but let me tell you I love seeing my team score. It also helped that we just won the cup as well.

There really isn't a defining takeaway from this article, at least for me. Just the time to look back and reflect on STHS, what made it unique, what made it frustrating, but what drew me into the league.

As well for people who only created in the FHM, to look back and see STHS in some light. Missing some context, but interesting to see.

***HoltzFan10*** · 05-23-2023, 11:18 PM

Quote:The best part? They were the worst team in terms of Average TPE, but by 100 TPE! Isn’t that the magic of STHS though, just letting the sim gods do its thing and pop off. But… what if you were on the other side, not would also sting just as much. So lets take a look at the best team to miss the playoffs.

Would love to see how goalie tpe impacted teams, specifically which goalie stats were most effective and how important goalies were :eyes:

***aleks*** · 05-23-2023, 11:25 PM

commenting before it gets to 5 pages

***Seany148*** · 05-23-2023, 11:39 PM

It's midnight, I aint got energy left for this

*Carpy48* · 05-24-2023, 02:03 AM

One thing I miss about STHS are goalie assists (at least they weren't completely useless then). Don't really know much else.

JumpierPegasus · 05-24-2023, 03:09 AM

Quote:STHS, was for better or for worse, made by a French canadian.

It's best if we never go back then.

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 05-24-2023, 05:39 AM

Even as someone who talks a lot about the issues with parity/predictability these days, I still agree that FHM is the better engines and the switch overall was a net positive.

Still, I do miss the unpredictable nature of it and genuine surprises it created and would love if we could get more of that in todays sim. Not to the same extreme level as it was in STHS sometimes, but more of it. I'd much prefer a scenario were a high-TPE team missed out occasionally due to random factors over one where the high-TPE teams are always guaranteed to be good assuming a certain minimal level of GM-ability. Also, with the current 16-team playoff format, no good team would miss out on the playoffs anyway even if they were on the very unlucky end of the randomness spectrum. And I think it's also fair to assume that GM-quality is at a much higher level than it was at the time when NEW missed out, were many teams, including the good ones, were essentially flying blind and just slapping lines together. Even if we were still in STHS with all its randomness, I would argue that with the knowledge we have today, these kinds of super random outcomes would be much less likely.

***Tomen*** · 05-24-2023, 06:47 AM

05-24-2023, 05:39 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: And I think it's also fair to assume that GM-quality is at a much higher level than it was at the time when NEW missed out, were many teams, including the good ones, were essentially flying blind and just slapping lines together. Even if we were still in STHS with all its randomness, I would argue that with the knowledge we have today, these kinds of super random outcomes would be much less likely.

I have to disagree with this quite a lot, by S51 Hammy had already won it's first Cup and BUF had won Cups before where it was a testsimming armsrace versus NOLA. I don't know if AWil had already figured out STHS by that point but if it wasn't the case it happened shortly after. If by that timeframe you weren't testsimming multiple thousands of iterations in STHS which was a thing of 15 minutes tops, you just didn't care enough as a GM.

Thank you all for the amazing sigs & player cards
Germany

3. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 5 (Maximilian Wachter, Alexis Metzler) at 16:25
5. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 6 (Steven Stamkos Jr., Brynjar Tusk) at 19:48
8. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 7 (Brynjar Tusk, Alexis Metzler) at 13:55
9. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 8 (Anton Fedorov, Mikelis Grundmanis) at 15:12
10. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 9 (Dickie Pecker) at 19:43 (Empty Net)

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 05-24-2023, 06:57 AM

05-24-2023, 06:47 AMTomen Wrote: I have to disagree with this quite a lot, by S51 Hammy had already won it's first Cup and BUF had won Cups before where it was a testsimming armsrace versus NOLA. I don't know if AWil had already figured out STHS by that point but if it wasn't the case it happened shortly after. If by that timeframe you weren't testsimming multiple thousands of iterations in STHS which was a thing of 15 minutes tops, you just didn't care enough as a GM.

Towards the end of STHS absolutely, that's why the change needed to happen. But for much of the STHS-era, this wasn't the case and even at the very end of it, not every team was doing that kind of work. Up until the S40s, it was much more a case of GMs focusing on locker room building, drafting and trading, with many of them just slapping lines together with barely any testing in hopes that they would fit.

***luke*** · 05-24-2023, 06:59 AM

05-24-2023, 06:57 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Towards the end of STHS absolutely, that's why the change needed to happen. But for much of the STHS-era, this wasn't the case and even at the very end of it, not every team was doing that kind of work. Up until the S40s, it was much more a case of GMs focusing on locker room building, drafting and trading, with many of them just slapping lines together with barely any testing in hopes that they would fit.

Yeah nah, being in both SMJHL and SHL almost every gm is test simming in the S40’s. Maybe some like Wasty or steelhead wasn’t. But there was a lot of test simming in the S40’s

***Tomen*** · 05-24-2023, 07:37 AM

05-24-2023, 06:57 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Towards the end of STHS absolutely, that's why the change needed to happen. But for much of the STHS-era, this wasn't the case and even at the very end of it, not every team was doing that kind of work. Up until the S40s, it was much more a case of GMs focusing on locker room building, drafting and trading, with many of them just slapping lines together with barely any testing in hopes that they would fit.

We literally were testing when you were on BUF and TDW was the Head GM(S30s), I even setup offseason files myself and had FAs on our team and pitched how good BUF would look with those players to said FAs.

Thank you all for the amazing sigs & player cards
Germany

3. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 5 (Maximilian Wachter, Alexis Metzler) at 16:25
5. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 6 (Steven Stamkos Jr., Brynjar Tusk) at 19:48
8. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 7 (Brynjar Tusk, Alexis Metzler) at 13:55
9. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 8 (Anton Fedorov, Mikelis Grundmanis) at 15:12
10. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 9 (Dickie Pecker) at 19:43 (Empty Net)

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 05-24-2023, 09:16 AM

05-24-2023, 07:37 AMTomen Wrote: We literally were testing when you were on BUF and TDW was the Head GM(S30s), I even setup offseason files myself and had FAs on our team and pitched how good BUF would look with those players to said FAs.