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Sparky_NY1's avatar
5 years ago

Potentials and Draft Class Quality/Generated Prospect Quality?

Hey guys, First time, long time.

I’m fairly new to NHL games and don't understand a few things. Does anyone know the layout for Potentials? What is the differences with potentials? Is Franchise med/low better than Elite high, etc. I get Franchise is for generational players like Crosby and McDavid, and Elite is for guys like Barzal, Matthews, Marner, etc. I just don’t understand the growth.

Also what's the best way to draft well based on generated prospect quality? I've played a few seasons in franchise and all I draft in the first round are Top 6 med at best. I rarely see any franchise or elite players. There are only about 3-4 per draft.

Thanks, I'll hang up and listen,.

6 Replies

  • @Sparky_NY1In nhl 21, prospect development is pretty messed up with bugs right now, so I wouldn’t think too much into it.

    To properly answer your question though, if FM wasn’t so bugged out in general, I find that high elite usually pan out more often than low franchise, and top 6 high better than low elite, and so on.

    Do you have fog of war on? If so, it may seem like there isn’t a lot of elite players, but might just be because you haven’t fully scouted them.

    There is rarely franchise players though.

    All of my findings are based off the base draft class quality/prospect quality settings. You can turn up the setting for more elite prospects and bigger classes etc.

    Basically, a prospect with “elite low” has a much lower chance of reaching their elite potential, whereas a top 6 high has a very high chance of reaching their potential. So the elite might only develop akin to a top 9, unfulfilling his potential. Whereas the top 6 high is very likely to hit his ceiling.

    I find that even with low elites, they usually never go high than low/mid 80’s even if they develop. I would take a top 6 med over a low elite almost every day.

    Always take a med franchise over high elite though. As for med elite and high top 6, it’s kind of a toss up. Depends on which player suits your needs best.

  • @Sparky_NY1 As for drafting well, I usually don’t have any scouts, or very few, in the NHL/AHL, I will just throw tons of scouts in the junior leagues looking at prospects. Usually 2 for each Canadian junior league, and if one of the Canadian juniors has lots of high rated prospects, I’ll put 3 scouts in there.
    Usually 2 in the SHL, 1-2 in Russia, 1 Liiga,

    1 for USA central, 1 for USA West, 2 for USA East.. I think. Usually one of the USA leagues has a lot of prospects, forget which one. The better USA league gets 2 scouts regardless.

    1 DEL, and I move that scout around the European leagues since they usually don’t have enough prospects to warrant a scout for the entire time.

    Basically, focus on WHL/OHL/Q, and SHL/Liiga, Russia, USA east/west/central, and keep an eye out for the odd high prospect in oddball leagues like NLA, exLiiga, Ebel, etc and just scout them one in a while.

    Honestly in this game, the scouting is kind of a crap shoot, anything outside of the top 20 are just shots in the dark.
  • @Sparky_NY1 You can turn the settings up to high if you want better prospects. I’ve never fiddled with the settings that much myself.
    If you crank them both up to high though, you should get strong draft classes more often, as well as better prospects in each draft

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