Hey everyone,
I’m looking to gauge interest in a custom sim league that steps away from the traditional NHL model and leans into a European-style football structure. If you’re tired of the extreme “tank for picks” meta and want a league where every win (and every dollar) actually matters, this might be for you. Here is my vision so far:
Two League Tiered System - The sim league will be broken up into two separate leagues
Tier 1 League (Name TBD) is the top league where the superstars play for true glory. Teams here have higher stakes, bigger earnings and bigger team budgets.
Tier 2 League (Name TBD) is the league where teams fight to earn the right to be promoted to the Tier 1 league. Here, the earnings aren’t as good but teams will have a stronger chance at enticing great prospects. This is where teams would look to rebuild their talent.
Note: For this to work in an HLM save file, the different “leagues” would need to be 1 actual league separated by conferences. Teams will still play regular season games against opponents in other leagues, but the playoffs will be completely separate. The semi-finals will be the league finals, and then the in-game ‘finals’ will be an exhibition series between the top Tier 1 team and the top Tier 2 team. *This is the only way that I have found to make this possible within HLM.
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Custom Finance System - As opposed to trading players for draft picks, this league will use a custom finance to allow GMs to buy and sell players. There is no ‘trading’ in a traditional sense. Organizations can earn money by placing higher in the standings, making deep playoff runs and by selling players.
Custom Prospect Enticing - This league will get rid of the typical entry draft and instead implement an enticing system to lure prospects to your organization. The idea is that this will be done in waves throughout the season and the prospects will be eligible to join their teams starting the next season. Any team will have the ability to sign top prospects but it will be heavily favored that players will head to rebuilding teams (for balancing).
League Management - Would ideally be done through discord and google sheets. After each sim, I’ll send out a read-only save file to view.
TLDR - Looking to start a non-tradtional league in HLM more similar to EU-football (/soccer) using custom systems to replace drafts/trading. Instead teams will buy and sell players.