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Originally Posted by HT Press
The Hattrick Hall of Fame, Part 1: Who To Add
Written by sterlingice
Personally, I love the Hall of Fame supporter feature. It helps breathe life into the later stages of playing HT and "immortalize" those players who can no longer play but contributed greatly to the franchise. However, it seems like a feature so few teams use. Looking at most teams, I'll see one or two players in there just for the achievement points but no writeups, no nothing. In this three part HP Press series, we'll look to spawn some new ideas and make it a richer experience for all who want to use it.
In Part 1, we look at possible Hall of Fame candidates from your team as well as various buying and selling paths your players can follow. In Part 2, we'll look at ways to make the most use out of the current Hattrick Hall of Fame. And, in Part 3, we'll discuss some suggestions to make the Hall of Fame even better.
The first question is: "Who to Add?" The Hall of Fame shouldn't be for just any old player. Well, actually it can be: as long as you can be creative about it.
This is your team Hall of Fame: pick players who are most important to your franchise. Don't burden them with the requirement of being important to Hattrick, as a whole. I've spent the last 25 seasons in III or II and I've never had a U20 or National Team player. Heck, unless one of my players used to be on my team or you were in a series with me, you probably have never heard of any of my players. Yet, I still have 16 players in my Hall of Fame of all shapes and sizes. Let's look at an example of what I mean.
Three of my most treasured HHHers are Mick Starks, Carlos Alberto Benito, and Edwin Phelan. Between the 3 of them, there was never a skill level above solid but they were legendary as my being original Hippos back in season 18, over 10 real life years ago. Especially early on in your franchise life, lower skilled players will be those threads around which the story of your franchise weaves. They will play a lot of games and score a lot of goals and be the heart of your team. They don't sell for a lot so there's no real financial benefit (tho I realize small amounts of cash are so very important early on). So, in most respects, they are ideal Hall of Fame candidates.
As your training regimen matures, finding Hall of Fame candidates can be difficult. You are cycling younger trainees who won't be on your team long enough to reach HOF status. Your players who are on the team long term might be those you want to buy young and sell as they age to recoup some profits to churn back into your training regimen and to buy upgrades. This can lead to the thought that "It's typically against your own economic self interest to HOF a player." Sometimes it can be and, honestly, sometimes you have to decide between what's best for your team financially and what makes for a richer game experience. However, you can minimize this effect. Let's take a look at skill career paths.
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A Brief Sidebar About Skill Paths:
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In my mind, for starting players on your team, there are basically 3 different acquisition career paths:
1) Youth pull from academy or really young (19 or younger) purchase: You train or buy the player young and train them up because it's in what you're training. You have to put in the effort to train them but they also come the cheapest.
2) Buy early in starting career: 20-23yo near max skills where you plan to get their prime 5~7 seasons out of a player. Sure, they cost the most by a wide margin but you get them in prime years.
3) Buy a veteran: 26+ yo who you get on the cheap because he's getting older and going to start to decline soon. It saves a lot in acquisition cost and wages but you don't get the longevity.
And 3 different selling career paths (provided you don't change your training or tactics completely mid-training cycle):
1) Sell a trainee once they are at their top market value vs training cost. Yeah, you trained them but this player is just money-churning fodder for your team.
2) Sell right before the decline around 25-27. I used to do this quite a bit until they made older players more valuable. You buy high or invest a lot of training time, but selling at 25 or 26 still nets you a pretty good return. So, for a premium (as little as ~20% sometimes), you can replace the player with someone much younger and similarly skilled.
3) Sell a player when they are too old to be useful, just to get his wages off the books. When the player hits 30, there's very little sales value left as even ex-superstars are worth under $1M.
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Ultimately, the HOF is all about the selling career paths more than the buying. Trainees: you couldn't care less about- they're all about money.
That second group: the "sell before they get old" group- they probably aren't worth re-acquiring when old unless they did something spectacular in their time with your team: 3 straight scoring titles, original team member, or something like that. I have only a couple in my Hall of Fame that fit into that category: Ovesson, Phelan, and Benito and two of those are aforementioned original Hippos. Chances are, however, if some other team is buying them at, say, 26, they plan on getting 5+ seasons out of them and may desire them for their own HOF.
These days, the market just isn't what it was 20 seasons ago. There is a huge premium placed on super-elite and rare players but every other market is compressed. I don't even see much of a point to selling back my 26 or 27yos. Now I tend to keep them around as low wage, high skill backups or even platoon with starters in bad form. The way I plan it, I just ease my old starters into becoming new backups.
That makes those players more like group 3. My guys get hurt enough that spending the small wages on older players can be a life saver. That way if I have an injury, I have a competent player who won't cost me a game or cause me to scramble and pay through the nose on the transfer market. Heck, a few seasons ago, I was cobbling together a 3rd midfielder from a combo of King and Thacker. At the time, they were both 35 and, when in good form, each put up 8-8.5 stars for $20K in wages. One could do a lot worse, even in Div III.
Those guys you ease out of the starting lineup are perfect for retiring to your Hall of Fame. They've played with you for a long time, probably have a lot of goals and games played. They are the type of players who have defined your franchise for 10+ seasons.
Customized players who you train for personal use should keep a special place in your franchise's heart and hall of fame. This would include some of the more non-standard training methods like uber-wingers, passing trainers, and set pieces teams. You spent all that time trying to find the perfect player who is a bit older than you standard 17 year old trainee and then you trained him up specifically for use on your team so he should be one of your more memorable players.
Coaches are another great example as they probably were on A) your team for a while, B) have limited playing skills, or C) both. At that point, you can retire them and talk about the team's performance during their tenure. But we're getting ahead of ourselves as we'll cover what to actually talk about with players in Part II.
(NOTE: While many of these are my own thoughts, much credit also goes out to a groupthink thread in the USA Forum a few seasons ago and many personal conversations with other HTers, past and present.)
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