Players with new potential values in DB not recognized by game generation

[BKarchitect]

Noticed this today as I was infilling the new OHL draft crop. Players in the DB set with the new player potential values are not populated in-game unless that league is selected or extra players from that nation are added.

 

Here's an example:

OHL prospect is created in the DB:
CA: 65, PA: -18

That means his game-generated PA will be between 110 and 160. 

If I just select the NHL and don't select the OHL, the game does not populate with him.

If I switch him to be:

CA: 65, PA: -13

That means his game-generated PA will be between 60 and 130.

So, a worse prospect, same ability - if I just select the NHL and don't select the OHL, the game does generate him.

 

So - you may say well maybe this was a rare case where his PA created in-game for the -13 version actually was higher and so it created him. Not true, went into the saved games and the -18 version had a PA of 154 and the -13 version had a PA of 92. Then I checked - there were like twelve new prospects added with a -18 PA and NONE were in the actual created game.

There is a way around this by simply selecting the OHL or additional Canadian players but that misses the point - young players with a PA of -18 are legit NHL prospects and if the game is smart enough to generate a baseline of players in other leagues, even if not selected - it needs to be tweaked to recognize the new PA values.

My guess is there is some sort of algorithm where if you only select the NHL to play - the game limits player population by ignoring players with very low abilities...so guys with a -4 etc do not get generated in a simple NHL-based setup. I feel like the new PA's have not been addressed though and the game is choosing to ignore them unless you tell it to fully-populate that league or nation at startup - even though players of the same or lower ability and reputation using the standard PA's (-13, -6, -7 etc) are being created.

Edited June 5, 2021 by BKarchitect
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[xECK29x]

Question BK what DB size and version was this ran on? Are you just using the default startup settings + OHL? We got reports of huge drop-offs in qualities of prospects in the latest DB versions (when we switched to adding 1.5 PA values) so I wonder if this is related.

[BKarchitect]

So as a test I took the latest subscribed Pivot roster...here are the default database ratings for the Niagara IceDogs (just picked a random junior team):

Agostinelli: 64/-13
Beraldo: 96/-6
Betts: 94/-6
Bruder: 70/-5
Butler: 76/-13
Campbell: 50/-4
Cato: 80/-14
Canton: 90/-14
Cook: 80/-5
De Simone: 70/-5
Doherty: 74/-5
Enright: 80/-14
Hinz: 74/-5
Howard: 90/-6
MacLean: 64/-4
Murphy: 74/-5
Peters: 64/-5
Rosenzweig: 60/-5
Sims: 64/-5
Snow: 64/-5
Struthers: 50/-13
Theriault: 60/-4
Tynan: 74/-13
Uberti: 64/-13

I started a game with just the NHL selected, no extra players, no added players. The bolded players are the ones that show up in the game. This makes sense - the game is basically acknowledging "hey you selected only the NHL, we aren't going to populate every single player in this league that isn't selected as playable". So it eliminated the low rated -4/-5 potential guys which aren't likely to ever make an impact as an NHL prospect or anything close to that. But all the -6/-13/-14 guys do show up...most of them aren't likely to be NHL level prospects either but it gives the team/league/prospect pool a sense of realism.

I then modified the DB and made every single IceDogs player the same but changed PA to -18. This is 110-160 and is a higher level of PA/prospect rating than any of these players have by default (the best shown above being -14). Same settings (NHL only, no added players) and the game generated a completely BLANK roster for the IceDogs. Only the following bolded players were generated even though they all have higher PA settings. It does not make sense that LESS players are being generated when they all have higher settings.

Agostinelli: 64/-18
Beraldo: 96/-18
Betts: 94/-18
Bruder: 70/-18
Butler: 76/-18
Campbell: 50/-18
Cato: 80/-118
Canton: 90/-18
Cook: 80/-18
De Simone: 70/-18
Doherty: 74/-18
Enright: 80/-18
Hinz: 74/-18
Howard: 90/-18
MacLean: 64/-18
Murphy: 74/-18
Peters: 64/-18
Rosenzweig: 60/-18
Sims: 64/-18
Snow: 64/-18
Struthers: 50/-18
Theriault: 60/-18
Tynan: 74/-18
Uberti: 64/-18

If I select the OHL as a playable league, they all show up in both databases - but the crux is a lot of people play with JUST the NHL and expect a certain level of player in other leagues to still be in the game, And guys with a -18 potential (and other high level new PA settings) should certainly always show up even if just the NHL is selected, especially if much lower -5/-6/-13/-14 PA's do always show up. As it stands, any database that uses these new PA ranges is going to create a game situation where a ton of top prospects are not generated in the game unless you select all playable leagues or add players from all those countries. 

Just for comparison I did a third attempt where every player on the team is edited in the DB to have a PA of 110. This is the low-end result of a -18 PA setting. 

Agostinelli: 64/110
Beraldo: 96/110
Betts: 94/110
Bruder: 70/110
Butler: 76/110
Campbell: 50/110
Cato: 80/110
Canton: 90/110
Cook: 80/110
De Simone: 70/110
Doherty: 74/110
Enright: 80/110
Hinz: 74/110
Howard: 90/110
MacLean: 64/110
Murphy: 74/110
Peters: 64/110
Rosenzweig: 60/110
Sims: 64/110
Snow: 64/110
Struthers: 50/110
Theriault: 60/110
Tynan: 74/110
Uberti: 64/110

It basically goes back to the level of population of the original DB although there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why some guys show up in some attempts and not in others. It doesn't seem to be strictly CA/PA based.

And here is an attempt with every guy rated a -7, which creates the same 110 PA bbaseline as -18 but a lesser cap of 140. So it's a lesser rating that -18 in every way:

Agostinelli: 64/-7
Beraldo: 96/-7
Betts: 94/-7
Bruder: 70/-7
Butler: 76/-7
Campbell: 50/-7
Cato: 80/-7
Canton: 90/-7
Cook: 80/-7
De Simone: 70/-7
Doherty: 74/-7
Enright: 80/-7
Hinz: 74/-7
Howard: 90/-7
MacLean: 64/-7
Murphy: 74/-7
Peters: 64/-7
Rosenzweig: 60/-7
Sims: 64/-7
Snow: 64/-7
Struthers: 50/-7
Theriault: 60/-7
Tynan: 74/-7
Uberti: 64/-7

Yup - the game recognizes every single player with a -7 rating is a potential prospect so it generates them. If that's the case, why does it not for a higher PA like -18?

 

 

[BKarchitect]

To be clear: I check and in the game with all the -18 PA's, the players who did get generated who have a -18 PA do have a PA that falls in that 110-160 range. So I don't think the issue is that the -18 isn't generating the proper PA range, it is that the game is not valuing that PA setting at the appropriate level upon initilization.

[xECK29x]

Thanks BK, so this isn't as bad as I initially thought it would be but I would definitely update our guidance to suggest enabling as many leagues as possible for scouting. I usually play with NHL + all affiliate leagues + all top tier Euro leagues + all junior leagues globally, so likely why I haven't noticed this in my playtesting.

Agree though, the game should almost never chop high floor PA kids.

[Riz Remes]

Hi, thanks for reporting this. I'll get this fixed for the next beta build. Seems like an oversight with retaining players from the starting DB with regards to the new random PA ranges.

[BKarchitect]

2 hours ago, Riz Remes said:

Hi, thanks for reporting this. I'll get this fixed for the next beta build. Seems like an oversight with retaining players from the starting DB with regards to the new random PA ranges.

Thanks Riz!