THL (S3) NHL 13 GM Connected Discussion

from the GM Connected video, basic settings should look like this..

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Max Users Per Team: 1
NHL Schedule Length: 2 Weeks
Allow Simming Of Games: Yes
Allow Join Requests: No
Skill Level: All-Star
Game Style: Hardcore
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Max Users - this obviously means how many can be on a team etc. for this league 1 owner per team.

NHL Schedule Length - we have three options here, 1 day, 3 days, or 2 weeks worth of schedule being open. with the schedule being 82 games having 2 weeks open at a time will be key, that will mean teams will have anywhere from say 5 to 8 games to play in that time frame. from what i have read, any trades, injuries, etc that occur in those 2 weeks wont be processed until the schedule advances to the next 2 week window. if guys will be away on vacation, work, etc you will have to set the build your ai and leave your team available to be played as the cpu. being able to use this type of feature and having an 82 game season we will be on a very strict advance deadline.

Allow Simming Of Games - this means that any unplayed games in the schedule window can and will be simmed.

Allow Join Requests - since we are a private league, join requests will be set to off.

Skill Level - this will be a tough call. what do we want from the league? user vs user games for most part, but if that cant happen we can use the build your ai feature. with that said, we dont want the cpu to be super hard and annoying to play against, but we also dont want guys just dont use this feature all the time to play games and have their cpu team beat a human player. so, will the happy medium be Pro or All-Star? more than likely All-Star but that can change.

Game Style - three options, Default, Normal, Hardcore. Default is the usual EA slider settings for online games. Normal adjusts the sliders a bit more realistic. Hardcore adjusts the sliders to be the most realistic so to speak. while Hardcore in the past has not been much different from Normal, we will most likely go with Hardcore. looking for the most realistic experience possible and this will help with that.
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just wanted to touch on some of that stuff guys, if you havent seen any of the GM Connected stuff please watch some of the videos and read up on it.

im really excited for this upcoming season, finally a new wrinkle for the NHL Leagues.

they wont be available this year unfortunately. im just glad they gave us the option to change the skill level and game style to be honest. that had me worried.

from an interview i do believe that they said you can be a part of a few.

im guessing, say be able to commish 1 or 2 and be a part of 1 or 2 others.

i dont think it will be like NCAA, where you have to buy an online dynasty commish pack. although ya never know!!

good idea bud..

i didnt plan on starting our season until the first week of the actual NHL season anyway. bc obviously would want to start with the most recent rosters.

so, that will give us plenty of time to get a test gm connected season a run through. simming a ton of games, having guys mess with their build their ai. heck, even the weekend of the early release we will give this mode a work out.

crossing my fingers that this mode works and we dont have any major hiccups. im sure there will be some small annoying things, just hoping its nothing that would keep us from using this type of setup.

im not a fan of the simming stuff either. in a perfect world all games would get played on time, great communication, great scheduling etc. but as we all know, that will never happen. we also are playing 82 games, not 42 siiiiigh lol.. that plays a part in it as well!!

so thats where im fine with games being simmed (using build an ai, if the other owner can play). thats also where this type of stuff makes me want to lean using the Pro difficulty level. that way, when a guy cant play and has to use build their ai feature the other owner will have like a 90% chance to win. bc the cpu sucks on Pro lol. that alone would make guys want to play their games.

now, with that said. this GM Connected stuff opens up other possibilities. like having an owner who is fine with the Pro level and just wants to manage is team and let it play out vs the other owners. adds something different to the leagues that we have not had before.

in all seriousness, every year we lose 2-4 guys (sometimes more with a 24 to 30 team league). maybe having that feature will help us not have to replace guys if they cant play here and there etc.

also, we most likely will use the 2 week schedule tick. so say 6 to 8 games will be open at one time for everyone. we will have to set a deadline for all those to be played before we can move on. this isn't like years past, where we could leave these games open and could be played at a later date. it now is these have to be played and if not, user x has to play user y's build an ai or the game will be simmed in general. no other options!!

can only play at the most 2 weeks in advance on the schedule. then it has to be simmed to get to the next 2 week block.

yeah, forums are best way to communicate here. with that said, i would like to have it more organized, maybe even in the scheduling thread etc. i would like to have everyone's email and even cell number so guys can text if they want to. obviously the guys that want to go that route will post their info. i would recommend, if you dont want to post personal number, cool, get a free google voice number and post that. works perfect. more ways to schedule games the better, some of these guys cant even view the site until they get home from work. by texting and emailing they could have games setup for when they walk in the door, load xbox, play game. but yeah, catching guys on xbox live to schedule is a peeve of mine, its the worst way to setup games IMO.

i agree, i want a challenge as well vs the cpu and Pro doesnt give that for sure, never has. if we have to play the cpu, same rules will be in place, no more than a 5 goal lead etc.

i also agree with it not being fair if schedules dont match up, those games will be simmed. unless one of the guys says its ok to use their build an ai, than that will be fine to play the cpu obviously.

we have a great feature with this build an ai stuff, to help us out through an 82 game season. my seasons have only been 44 games long at the most and we would do 2 of them a year. a good bit of hiccups as well with work, family, etc for all owners. but that was with being able to keep advancing the schedule and keeping past games open. thats not that case now. so we double up the schedule and cant keep past games open to be played. that stinks, bc all games 1 v 1 in my leagues got played 99% of the time. we will have to utilize this build an ai somehow in the league. how much? dont know.. that can be determined when we run that test league prior to starting the season. see how it works etc. (that goes for the difficulty level as well)

good stuff guys, keep it coming..

thats not an option, this will all be online via ea's league page/app/xbox..

with an 82 game schedule, i agree, cpu vs cpu games wont be all that bad if we have to go that route some. makes guys at least stay active, look at schedule, and setup their team accordingly.

myself and QcGlitcher gi1jam were talking about playing the cpu or even coaching against cpu..

82 game schedule, going to be really tough to get every user vs user game in, especially with the way we have to keep pace etc.

some dont like the idea of playing against the cpu on pro, bc it should be to easy, want a challenge. others think that playing against anothers cpu on all star could be a bit to tough and dont want guys to use that as a crutch.

with that said, came up with a few ideas..

out of 82 games, let say you can only play vs another owners cpu 10 times..

if you dont want to use any of those 10 games and you and owner y cant hook up, you then can "coach" your team in that game. that way, if we play on all star, you dont have to worry about cheap ai so to speak, you can coach your AI vs his.

nothing above is set in stone, but we need to get some of this stuff in order so we know whats going on once the season starts. like it or not, 82 games completed by everyone user vs user will be impossible, schedules will effect this. so limiting the number of games you can play vs anothers cpu and or coaching against them instead needs to be addressed.

please share your thoughts on the above..

thanks guys

its going to have to be determined by me obviously, and i will be going off the scheduling thread. if one owner is more available than the other or is trying a lot more to get the game in, then that owner could possibly play the cpu. is that 100% fair? probably not, but that isn't 100% final yet either. we have to figure something out though.

like my above post, maybe if they cant meet up, instead of getting to play that other owners cpu, maybe you can coach against his cpu in the game. watch the game play out, make adjustments etc. that way no one has an advantage by playing the cpu or having the cpu dominate the other guy.