Player Progression

[gamertom]

Do players progress during the season or only after the season ends?

[mikeylang22]

Only after the season ends and again the progression system in this game is horrible.

[Nickflyers]

you may have the occasional increase during the season but it's rare and maybe 1 overall point.

[fudgie]

I find the progression pretty reasonable in this game. You will see players with A potential will gain maybe 2-3 points durring the season, and 5 or so in the offseason. B potential is slightly slower, and C potential will be small increases. It's realistic, it's not like players such as say Simon Gagne will get much better. Or even players like TJ Oshie, who i believe has B potential, will increase greatly. It'll take a few season to make him elite.

[jrich730]

does anybody know what progression is based on is it by how much they do on the ice because i really don't understand it and i never have

[Pearly]

Every player gains XP after every game and also at certain points during the season, I believe. I think the XP system is like in Be A Pro, so grinders get more xp for checking and doing their thing and snipers get more XP for goals. Though in the end general good gameplay works for every and each player type, so if your grinder goes on getting a hat-trick ten games in a row, he's bound to get a lot of XP.

You can affect what each player trains up through the player training screen in Be a GM, too.

At the end of every season (after the Stanley Cup has been won) your players will get extra XP depending on how well they played during the whole season, like goal, assist and point totals will count, did the player get into the playoffs, win the Stanley Cup, etc. I'm not 100% sure if winning the Conn Smythe or the other rewards gives a player any XP but I'd suppose so. This phase usually sees players gaining more points/overall than during the season.

So once the pre-season starts, you'll be able to check out how much your players progressed. Also, as far as I have noticed, potential doesn't affect your XP gains but rather how much it costs to raise your skills.

I'm not a 100% on all of that since I'm not a developer and it'd take ages to check through everything and test it out in Be A GM but this is how I think it works from my time with the mode. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

EDIT: Oops, forgot to say that this is for NHL10! I'd expect that it works the same in NHL11 (I'm only five games into my Be A GM season) but it could be that they changed it for NHL11 so that the players just store all the xp or that there's a bug and they aren't spending any of their xp. I'll have to test this out on my PS3 copy. Hopefully someone can test it out on the xbox 360 as well.

[goatriderhorde]

I'm finding a lot of my players don't progress at all during the season. They'll earn exp points, it'll top out at 1500, and then at no point does my asst. coach spend the points. If it were only 30 yr old guys with C potentials, I'd understand, but this included Doughty and Rask. Spoils GM mode for me, just a little.

[Pearly]

Quote: Originally Posted by goatriderhorde

I'm finding a lot of my players don't progress at all during the season. They'll earn exp points, it'll top out at 1500, and then at no point does my asst. coach spend the points. If it were only 30 yr old guys with C potentials, I'd understand, but this included Doughty and Rask. Spoils GM mode for me, just a little.

Well, after simming a little I noticed that I've the same issue. I created two exactly identical defenders and placed them in the same team, in the same line (1st defensive pair, 1st PP) and then simmed twenty games or so. Both guys were 84 ovr with all A potential. One had 1500xp and 0 stats progression and the other had spent some of his xp. Both even had the same training settings. I can't help but to think it's a bug.

Has anyone else noticed this? I'll make a bug report about it anyway when I've the time tomorrow.