Player development

[SharksGM]

Just a few notes on player development branching off from the Cuma trade discussion:

There is some talk about which formulas apply to stats and how much you can gain from skilful training, etc. As far as I've seen players virtually always (eventually) develop the same way in fastsims as in real life and training regimens only really change how quickly players develop. If you want to know what ratings a player will reach, there's no better way than just fastsimming 3-4 years. The caveat is that the CPU is often retarded about sending good players down to the farm, so they may not reach their true ceilings if they've been demoted for no real reason. Other than that they will eventually reach their peak by the mid 20s and stay there until longer than you care to sim.

Beyond that, here are some general rules:

1. Goalies care not about ceilings and just develop to their potential in everything. They seem to start declining around 36-37. Some goalies who started with attributes above their ceiling (e.g. Turco's stickhandling) appear to keep them... maybe it's just stickhandling, I don't know.

2. Pot * ceiling is a reasonable first guess and does apply for most attributes, except the penalty rating which never seems to change.

3. I think everyone knows about the height rule - 6'2 forwards use their ceiling for hitting; 6'0-6'1 use 90, <6' use 70 or even less. I don't think super tall players can get very good hitting if their ceiling is low, so a 6'9 forward with a 50 hitting ceiling is always going to be soft. Sorry, Joe Colborne.

4. However, forwards tend to ignore their ceilings in stickhandling, treating it as 100. Thus there is little need to worry about forwards with bad ST as they will (eventually) reach close to their POT. Example: Jack Skille. He's taking his sweet time about it but eventually he'll hit 82-83 ST even though his ceiling is 80 and POT 84. A similar thing happens with positioning; I haven't figured out the exact formula. Skille has a 75 POS ceiling and will hover around 75 pos rather than the 84*75/100 = 63 you'd expect from his ceiling or the 84 that it would be if the ceiling was just 100. Another example is Mason Raymond, who'll eventually hit 78 ST and 78 PO despite having 85 and 80 ceilings in those attributes respectively. An annoying counterexample: Charlie Coyle, who doesn't look like he'll bust through his low POS ceiling anytime soon.

4. Forwards also don't seem to benefit from high ceilings in CH, PO & SK like they do with HI, SH, PL & FO. Example: Sam Gagner. He says 120 CH & 130 PO ceilings, but his CH & PO hover around 83-84, just a couple of points above his 82 POT.

6. Everything I said about forwards is similar for defensemen, except that they tend to use 100 for their ceiling in CH and (sometimes) in PO. Example: Alec Martinez will hit 78 (his pot) in CH & PO despite having 80 ceilings. There are a number of defenceman like him with 80s across the board who will hit their pot in those ratings. Some defenseman do benefit from ceilings above 100, though, like Patrik Nemeth's 120 CH and Alex Grant's 125 POS, although I often see Grant hit 84 PO before falling back down to his 78 POS. They also don't seem to benefit from >100 ceilings in ST & SK. Another example: Derek Joslin. He'll stick around 78 ST, CH, and PO, despite having a giant ST ceiling and lower CH/PO.

These rules don't always work, which gets back to the first thing I said. Screw the rules. Do a fastsim. Actually, do several fastsims. You'll find that players develop the same way every time. If you have the patience to manually sim to test out super duper training regimens, you might develop players faster, but chances are the end results will be exactly the same as in the fastsim. And just to test, we'll get back to the player who started this discussion: Tyler Cuma. He hits his offensive ceilings, getting 79 79 75 (77 off). Defensive stats: 80 73 88 (80 def). He hits his pot (78) in CH, gets close to that in POS despite an 80 ceiling, and hits pot*ceiling in hitting. Fairly typical. He also hits pot*ceiling in skating and faceoffs. Biggs, meanwhile, will exceed pot*ceiling in ST & PO but not in PL. Also fairly typical. Seriously, there aren't that many surprises here.

[Montreal Canadiens]

Gagner has 90 CH

Also gets higher