Not that it's broken, persay, but it's certainly a mode with an alarming amount of flaws to anybody who has played it extensively. A lot of the issues also seem to be things that aren't difficult to fix, and strike me as lazy programming. Here's a basic overview of the more glaring problems in Be A GM Mode:
Free Agency
- Top free agents continue to go unsigned. This is one of the biggest problems in this mode. Right now I'm a few weeks into the 2015-2016 season and Toews, H. Sedin, and Thornton (rated 91, 90, 89 respectively) are still unsigned. Even worse, Henrik Sedin is a free agent dating all the way back to the previous year. The problem seems to stem from the fact that most teams are up against or over the cap when free agency begins. I only assume that's why they refuse to sign top free agents, but somebody who plays without the salary cap can confirm or deny that. Regardless, this happens every year in free agency and there's just no excuse for it. Either they didn't bother testing the mode or they knew the problem existed but ignored it. Any way you cut it, EA was lazy here. It sorely needs to be addressed in NHL11.
- Players will turn down contracts for ridiculous reasons. Fourth liners won't sign to play on your fourth line because they won't get enough playing time, but they have no other offers and instead rot in the free agent pool. I've also had goalies turn down offers for the same reasons, even when I'm signing them to play as a starter and I have no capable NHL goalies on my roster. The free agency logic is sketchy to say the least. Free agents also should be lowering their demands deeper into free agency when it's clear no teams can afford the salary they're seeking.
- Free agency needs to be deeper. Adding RFA's would be a nice touch in particular. The ability to actually do real negotiating with free agents would be cool, too, as well as being able to give players extensions in their final contract year without having to wait until the end of the season.
- This one drives me crazy; salary demands are seemingly only driven by age and overall rating. A player who has a career high of less than 40 points should not be asking for a lucrative contract just because he has a high overall rating. Similarly, players who put up big numbers who may not have a high overall rating should be asking for more than they do, even if they were simply a product of great linemates or had a fluke year. What I'm getting at is that previous production should be the determining factor for player salary demands, not their imaginary overall rating.
Drafting
- First and foremost, the overall talent level in the automated drafts are weak. Very few players from what I've seen start out as better than an 80 overall, even the first few picks. I'm well into my franchise and there are practically no players that ever finish near the top of the scoring who were drafted in 2010 or later, and I'm into the year 2016 now. That's pretty ridiculous, especially when every other draft pick seemingly from 2007-2009 has turned out to be a great player in this game.
- Prospect attributes don't seem to be associated with any others. For example it's not uncommon to see somebody with 70 acceleration and 90 speed. In general the ratings are too jekyll and hyde, prospects aren't well rounded enough. It's also tough to figure out any kind of real drafting strategy, and most prospects are missing hints to key attributes. How can my scout have a player's speed down but not have the slightest clue about their acceleration? One would think that they have a decent scouting report on almost every prospect since in this day and age anybody with google can find an indepth scouting report on almost anybody taken in this year's draft.
- There should players coming from all different kinds of leagues from all over the world, whether it be the OHL, the QMHJL, the SEL, NCAA, high school, etc. You should also be able to view their numbers in those leagues as a supplement to their attributes. Also, players you draft should not automatically turn pro. In fact most prospects do not turn pro for a few years while they develop elsewhere.
- Not enough prospects are NHL ready, even at the earlier stages. A few seasons in the talent in the league is pretty high, so guys that aren't rated in the low-mid 80's aren't useful for most teams. Almost all of the prospects in the first round are rated in the 70's, I don't think I've seen any rated 80+ to start, even the first overall picks.
- Drafting and developing prospects is pretty much pointless in NHL10 for the reasons stated earlier about the logic for free agent salary demands being based purely on ratings. By the time you develop a prospect their entry level contracts are up and they want to be paid like established veterans based on their overall rating. The main benefit of drafting in the NHL is to get talent at various positions for cheap, but it doesn't have any real benefit in NHL10 aside from trade bait, which brings me to my next segment.
Trade Logic
- Prospects have unbelievable amounts of value in trades - it's not hard to trade for an elite player if you include a decent prospect in the deal. This does make drafting somwhat useful, but not the way it was intended. On the other hand, good veteran players have very little value, even at the trade deadline where their value should increase.
- Teams are stubborn when it comes to trades, often replying to offers with blanket statements like "we don't need a defenseman" or "we don't want any more one way contracts at this time." My personal favorite is when they refuse to trade away a player because they "don't want to trade away young players like ____", even when they're getting a prospect in return or the player in question isn't very good.
- 90% of the trades offered to me by the CPU are total garbage that I would never accept. Sometimes they'll even offer me more or less the same package shortly afterwards. This is kind of nitpicking though, but it does get pretty tedious declining useless offers every week I sim.
Other
- Way more indepth stats and information. I should be able to view the career numbers of every player rather than just their last few seasons as well as the various teams they played for. I'd also like to keep track of all of the draft picks from previous years, both to see how different draft classes turned out as well as to see how my own fared. It's cool when you're in free agency and you stumble upon a player you drafted before who turned out to be good.
- Goalies seem to win the Hart / Conn Smythe 90% of the time, often times with very unspectactular stats. Unless a goalie puts up ridiculous Hasek-esque numbers there's no way he should be winning the Hart. It's far more common to see a goalie win the Conn Smythe, but it still shouldn't happen every year and it shouldn't happen unless the goalie puts up a great save percentage / GAA and there are no clear cut deserving skaters. The Selke also seems to be won by a lot of not so great defensive players like Cheechoo and Schremp, so the criteria there oughta be tweaked, too.
I probably forgot some stuff that I'll add in later, but hopefully some EA devs see this and can correct some of the bigger issues that exist in Be A GM mode. Despite it's flaws it's a lot of fun, but has the potential to be so much better if they just put some more time and effort into it.
I encourage everybody to add their own improvements as well!
Free Agency
- Top free agents continue to go unsigned. This is one of the biggest problems in this mode. Right now I'm a few weeks into the 2015-2016 season and Toews, H. Sedin, and Thornton (rated 91, 90, 89 respectively) are still unsigned. Even worse, Henrik Sedin is a free agent dating all the way back to the previous year. The problem seems to stem from the fact that most teams are up against or over the cap when free agency begins. I only assume that's why they refuse to sign top free agents, but somebody who plays without the salary cap can confirm or deny that. Regardless, this happens every year in free agency and there's just no excuse for it. Either they didn't bother testing the mode or they knew the problem existed but ignored it. Any way you cut it, EA was lazy here. It sorely needs to be addressed in NHL11.
- Players will turn down contracts for ridiculous reasons. Fourth liners won't sign to play on your fourth line because they won't get enough playing time, but they have no other offers and instead rot in the free agent pool. I've also had goalies turn down offers for the same reasons, even when I'm signing them to play as a starter and I have no capable NHL goalies on my roster. The free agency logic is sketchy to say the least. Free agents also should be lowering their demands deeper into free agency when it's clear no teams can afford the salary they're seeking.
- Free agency needs to be deeper. Adding RFA's would be a nice touch in particular. The ability to actually do real negotiating with free agents would be cool, too, as well as being able to give players extensions in their final contract year without having to wait until the end of the season.
- This one drives me crazy; salary demands are seemingly only driven by age and overall rating. A player who has a career high of less than 40 points should not be asking for a lucrative contract just because he has a high overall rating. Similarly, players who put up big numbers who may not have a high overall rating should be asking for more than they do, even if they were simply a product of great linemates or had a fluke year. What I'm getting at is that previous production should be the determining factor for player salary demands, not their imaginary overall rating.
Drafting
- First and foremost, the overall talent level in the automated drafts are weak. Very few players from what I've seen start out as better than an 80 overall, even the first few picks. I'm well into my franchise and there are practically no players that ever finish near the top of the scoring who were drafted in 2010 or later, and I'm into the year 2016 now. That's pretty ridiculous, especially when every other draft pick seemingly from 2007-2009 has turned out to be a great player in this game.
- Prospect attributes don't seem to be associated with any others. For example it's not uncommon to see somebody with 70 acceleration and 90 speed. In general the ratings are too jekyll and hyde, prospects aren't well rounded enough. It's also tough to figure out any kind of real drafting strategy, and most prospects are missing hints to key attributes. How can my scout have a player's speed down but not have the slightest clue about their acceleration? One would think that they have a decent scouting report on almost every prospect since in this day and age anybody with google can find an indepth scouting report on almost anybody taken in this year's draft.
- There should players coming from all different kinds of leagues from all over the world, whether it be the OHL, the QMHJL, the SEL, NCAA, high school, etc. You should also be able to view their numbers in those leagues as a supplement to their attributes. Also, players you draft should not automatically turn pro. In fact most prospects do not turn pro for a few years while they develop elsewhere.
- Not enough prospects are NHL ready, even at the earlier stages. A few seasons in the talent in the league is pretty high, so guys that aren't rated in the low-mid 80's aren't useful for most teams. Almost all of the prospects in the first round are rated in the 70's, I don't think I've seen any rated 80+ to start, even the first overall picks.
- Drafting and developing prospects is pretty much pointless in NHL10 for the reasons stated earlier about the logic for free agent salary demands being based purely on ratings. By the time you develop a prospect their entry level contracts are up and they want to be paid like established veterans based on their overall rating. The main benefit of drafting in the NHL is to get talent at various positions for cheap, but it doesn't have any real benefit in NHL10 aside from trade bait, which brings me to my next segment.
Trade Logic
- Prospects have unbelievable amounts of value in trades - it's not hard to trade for an elite player if you include a decent prospect in the deal. This does make drafting somwhat useful, but not the way it was intended. On the other hand, good veteran players have very little value, even at the trade deadline where their value should increase.
- Teams are stubborn when it comes to trades, often replying to offers with blanket statements like "we don't need a defenseman" or "we don't want any more one way contracts at this time." My personal favorite is when they refuse to trade away a player because they "don't want to trade away young players like ____", even when they're getting a prospect in return or the player in question isn't very good.
- 90% of the trades offered to me by the CPU are total garbage that I would never accept. Sometimes they'll even offer me more or less the same package shortly afterwards. This is kind of nitpicking though, but it does get pretty tedious declining useless offers every week I sim.
Other
- Way more indepth stats and information. I should be able to view the career numbers of every player rather than just their last few seasons as well as the various teams they played for. I'd also like to keep track of all of the draft picks from previous years, both to see how different draft classes turned out as well as to see how my own fared. It's cool when you're in free agency and you stumble upon a player you drafted before who turned out to be good.
- Goalies seem to win the Hart / Conn Smythe 90% of the time, often times with very unspectactular stats. Unless a goalie puts up ridiculous Hasek-esque numbers there's no way he should be winning the Hart. It's far more common to see a goalie win the Conn Smythe, but it still shouldn't happen every year and it shouldn't happen unless the goalie puts up a great save percentage / GAA and there are no clear cut deserving skaters. The Selke also seems to be won by a lot of not so great defensive players like Cheechoo and Schremp, so the criteria there oughta be tweaked, too.
I probably forgot some stuff that I'll add in later, but hopefully some EA devs see this and can correct some of the bigger issues that exist in Be A GM mode. Despite it's flaws it's a lot of fun, but has the potential to be so much better if they just put some more time and effort into it.
I encourage everybody to add their own improvements as well!
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