Updating The Ratings

The push to get the U SPORTS Women's Hockey version of NHL '94 is on at HBIC Headquarters as I've spent the day updating ratings and rosters for each team. You might be scratching your head and wondering why I'm doing this considering we already had rosters and teams defined back in August, but keeping this game up-to-date for the 2023-24 season was always the goal. That means taking the rosters from August when teams hadn't finalized anything, reviewing player names and numbers, and adjusting ratings accordingly for those players who have been good through the first half of the season. I also adjust team ratings to reflect those teams that are doing well and those who haven't seen as much success, and I think we're pretty close at having that side of the game finalized.

The biggest revelation for me was finding a tool that allowed me to change individual ratings for team skills. This allowed me to rank teams on individual skills like offence, defence, power-play, penalty-killing, and home and road strengths. Had I not found this tool, the teams would be ranked as per the NHL tams they replaced, and that was causing some serious headaches when it came to reality because it seemed like the Regina Cougars were unstoppable. They're good, but a team currently in seventh-place in Canada West likely wouldn't beat a Nipissing or a Concordia as easily as the Cougars were. After making the adjustments, they still can win, but they're not as invincible as they seemingly were before.

After fixing the team ratings, I went back and reviewed all the team rosters because there were definitely recruits I had added that were wearing numbers that differed from what I had assigned them, so that needed to be fixed. On top of that, I reviewed scoring for each of the teams and made some adjustments there as well. For example, Mackenzie Kordic of UBC is now the top-rated player for the Thunderbirds, but players like Chanreet Bassi are Rylind MacKinnon are still rated nicely.

Based on the size of the file, I have limited bytes free for data, so I made the decision to keep rosters between 22 and 25 players. This means that some players who have played this season won't appear in the game, but that's how the game goes when I'm restricted by ROM size. Players who have played in less than half their team's games this season likely don't make the game unless a team needs its roster filled out with players. A few teams have only used six defenders this season so they clearly need a seventh or eighth defender in case of injuries, and that's where I added in an extra player who hasn't played much in the first half of this season.

Goalies who haven't appeared this season or have appeared the least this season also got cut. A lot of teams feature three goalies, but my version of U SPORTS Women's Hockey will eliminate those goalies who have one appearance or less. I simply don't have enough space on the ROM to have all teams carrying three netminders. Just like the players who didn't make the cut in the above paragraph, I apologize to those who didn't make it, but ROM size is a real thing.

With the ratings and rosters finalized, it's all graphics work now. That might be the toughest ask based on some of the ROM editing documentation I've read, but I'm going to sit down and see if I can figure out the programs and how to make the graphics work. If I can get one done and looking professional, it's just rinse and repeat for the other logos. If have to redraw all the logos using this software, that's going to be a lot of work, but the documentation seems to indicate I won't have to do that.

There's the update for November as I'll have more time in December to really work on the game. It's coming along, and I'm very happy with how the teams and rosters are looking after the updates made, but now we'll see how my artwork skiils do in the coming weeks. For a guy who struggles to draw stickpeople, this may be a big ask!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!