Slightly Wishlist / Reputation League priority

[ideawithoutamind]

This might be more of a wishlist than a bug. Although in theory, I'd like the reputations in game to work more as configured than automatically making the NHL the top league, even if there are equivilent or even better leagues configured in the database. For this example, I made the KHL a better league than the NHL from reputation settings for league and teams.

Been working on a lot of custom db's as well as different league setups. But this is a fairly universal trait, and I think it's a hardcoded part of the game.

The NHL (or whichever league is set at Club CompetitionID = 0) holds priority in the game, and most high profile players won't even consider signing with a team unless it's in Club CompetitionID = 0 usually the NHL for Pivot or most DBs)

For a mock up showing this, I made the following changes (I will upload the db and a save as well).

NHL, all NHL Divisions, and NHL stage competition reputation all changed from 20 to 15
All NHL teams changed from 8500-9500 to 4000-7000

KHL all KHL Divisions, and KHL stage competition reputation all changed from ~15  to 20
All KHL teams changed from sub 7000 to 9000-9500. I also changed Vityaz to be a US team based in Boston (kept their name, just for purposes of trying to sign North American players). In the save, I have Vityaz (fictionally moved to the US for testing in the KHL),  Amur (Russian team in the KHL), and Seattle (American team in the NHL).

 

For the purposes of the test, I made the top 150+ players in the NHL (rated by CA) into free agents. And loaded the game and tried to sign a couple of players:

From Vityaz (repuation 9000, KHL rep 20), Connor McDavid will not even consider signing.

Yet, with Seattle, he will negotiate:

 

I tried with a european player, just see if it was different, but still the same behavior:

 

 

Just going to the free agent page, and filtering out unrealistic, you can see the difference.
Vityaz


Amur won't even list a single UFA available (russian team with 9000 reputation):



Seattle

 

Anyways, in terms of what I'd like to see, I'd like to see that the reputations in game and in configuration can be set to allow league and team reputations to draw players, if they are high enough. The NHL (or Club CompetitionID = 0) seems to trump everything else, even if those settings are lowered. But would be nice to be able to create a rival league that can actually draw some of those players, if specific league is configured in the database. Basically any league with a reputation of 20, and teams in the above 8500 reputation, it would be desirable for them to be able to sign or attract star players that are NHL quality.

 

I uploaded LowerNHL.zip with a save and db file.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by ideawithoutamind

[BKarchitect]

I’ve long suspected the NHL comp is hard-coded with advantages no matter what you do to adjust league and club reputations and finances. I ran into the exact same issues when trying to setup a new WHA in my database years ago. It ultimately defeated the entire point of that league mod so I scrapped it.

But thanks for taking the time to definitively “prove” this. It at least helps editors and mod-ers to know not to waste too much time trying to solve this via the editor.

Edited October 5, 2021 by BKarchitect