Making a 64 team custom universe has led me to think of some more things that would go a long way to improving immersion.
Each suggestion will be grouped by subject and classified based on feasibility:
- [F] is something I see no problems adding, things like values that could be opened up for editing in NHL 23.
- [D] is something that, while doable, would likely require new code - things that would likely be pushed to NHL 24 or future installments.
- [S] is a stretch suggestion, something which I cannot see being easily added since an overhaul of certain features would be needed
With that out of the way, I'll begin,
ARENAS
- Arena Age [F]
From what I can gather, the age of an arena is an integer value. A thing that has been persistent since NHL 17 is that a custom team's arena defaults to being brand new. This is a minor thing, but can impact owner mode. There are instances where I have experienced an immersion issue. It would be helpful to have in a team's details tab the ability to define how old/when their arena was built.- Before expansion was added I relocated Arizona to Saskatoon and had them play at the SaskTel Centre. That arena was built in 1988, but when I moved it was treated data-wise as being brand new.
- Recreating the NHL in my current project I have reused a fair number of Arenas since I have some teams that exist in our timeline as well.
- Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Edmonton, Montreal, NY Rangers, LA Kings, Ottawa, Philly, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
- Additionally there are teams which play in real arenas as their cities have NHL/NBA teams.
- Calgary Cowboys (Saddledome), Colorado [Denver] Rockies (Ball Arena), Dallas Cowboys (American Airlines Center), Indianapolis Fuel (Gainbridge Fieldhouse), San Francisco Seals (Chase Center)
- Centre Ice Text [D]
Essentially give the option to display the arena name around the centre ice faceoff circle, a simple text feature where we choose what font we want and the orientation. Might need to add a blacklist of phrases or lock it to offline only. - More Stadiums\Preset Stadiums [S]
As I mentioned I am reused a bunch of stadiums, and while some presets correspond to real arenas (Buffalo, Calgary, Dallas, Vancouver) some teams will not have the same feel. The Rangers lose the feel of MSG. If we had customizable versions of all 32 NHL arenas it would be helpful.
History
- Team Age [F]
Same idea as Arena Age, for example my Saskatoon team was a 1970 expansion team in my current league. - Anniversary Seasons [D]
In Franchise Mode it would be neat to see teams wear a generated patch to commemorate an anniversary. - League Award History [D]
A feature where we can input who won what team award when. In my custom league the Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Washington Capitals cannot have won the Stanley Cup in the past 5 seasons since those teams don't exist. This is where team age would factor in, you would only be able to choose teams that played in a season. IE my Kelowna Lakers who first played in 2006-07 are an invalid selection for the 1996 Cup winners. - Individual Award History\Stat History [S]
A bit more complicated but same idea as above but for players. Add a variable to slightly tweak real stats or override it entirely with the ability to define stats. This will also help with created players. Say that Nathan Mackinnon won the Rocket in my 2020-21 for the Halifax Whalers. It would require heavy coding though and may inflate game size. - Full Stat History [S]
This one is a leviathan that may be pointless given how few people would go to these lengths but if I could define the records for each team, I would LOVE that. In my timeline Jarome Iginla & Martin St. Louis formed a great line for the Saskatoon Blades. It'd be nice to have it on the books.
Thanks, that's all for now.
