100% credit goes to Smozoma for figuring this out!

If you have read the section “Understanding Attribute Values“, you should have an understanding of how the ratings numbers are generated. If someone has a “4” rating for Speed, the rating baseline is 72 (4 x 18 = 72). However, if you check the ratings on the edit lines screen, you’ll see that the number fluctuates anywhere from -9 to +8 from that baseline number for the “hot/cold” adjustment.  So for Luc, he will be anywhere from 63 to 80.  Here’s a sample of a few Luc Robitaille speed ratings from a few games.

Each attribute will have a different hot/cold value applied to the rating, seemingly random for each game, for each player.  So Robitaille may get +4 for Speed, -3 for Agility, +6 for Shot Power, etc., and it will be different each game for each attribute for each player.

So far so good?

As it turns out, those displayed ratings are not representative of what is actually happening! They are completely random and essentially meaningless!

So what is really happening? The players DO get a hot/cold bonus from -9 to +8 each game when they hit the ice, but they get ONE bonus value applied to ALL attributes (speed, agility, shot power, etc.).  If a player is hot, he is hot on all attributes, cold he will be cold on all attributes.  This happens within the code of the game, but you won’t be able to tell if someone is hot or cold other than “feeling” it with the player because the displayed ratings are random and do not correlate to the actual in-game bonuses.

So are the displayed ratings completely useless? Yes. You can’t base any decisions off the displayed ratings as the hot/cold bonuses do not match the in-game bonuses.

On that same note,  Ron Barr will report that someone is “hot” or “cold” during the matchup screens. The overall ratings will be higher/lower than baseline, but again, that is based on random bonuses that do not correlate with the in-game bonuses. So Ron can say someone is “hot”, but the on ice bonus can actually be negative.  He just doesn’t know, he’s reporting the displayed ratings!

Bottom line — if you’re playing the classic NHL’94 game, ignore the hot/cold and the edit lines ratings as they are meaningless. Just play and try to “feel” is a guy is hot/cold.

OPTIONAL FURTHER READING

MOAR MATH: While the “display” ratings follow the formula (rating x 18) + bonus, the “under-the-hood” ratings the game actually uses for your players is (rating x 5) +(bonus/3). Further, since the game doesn’t use decimal numbers, you have to round down anything divided by 3. So 1/3 is really 0, 5/3 is 1, etc.

The fact that the bonus is -9 to +8 has some deeper implications. Since you have to divide by 3 and round down, the -9 bonus is the only one that will get you a 3 adjustment. Taking that a step further, there really isn’t a range of 18 different bonus attributes, but rather 6 possible adjustments (-3,-2,-1,0,1,2).

Here is a chart that shows what the “under-the-hood” ratings bonus would be for each of the bonus values, then translated back into the standard “0-6” rating scale to make it more familiar.

The percentages are the chance you have of getting one of those bonuses assuming each bonus has an equal probability of being selected. You’ll note that there is more red here than green, so you are more likely to have a cold player than hot player on any given game.   Also, a super-cold player (-9 bonus) has the equivalent rating of a hot player (+6 to +8) with 1 less base rating. So a hot player with a 3 attribute calculates the same as super-cold player with 4 attribute.

Can this bug be fixed? Yes, the almighty smozoma shows how you can fix it here.  And he actually gives a few different options using his nifty hack applicator:

Option #1: Classic mode.

Players: Hot or cold equally on all their attributes.
Edit Lines Ratings: Random values that don’t match actual player bonus (not useful).

Option #2: E-sports mode, no bonuses.

Players: Always baseline, no hot/cold applied.
Edit Lines Ratings: Always show baseline: 36,54,72,99, etc.

Option #3: Classic mode w/ Baseline display.

Players: Hot or cold equally on all their attributes.
Edit Lines Ratings: Always shows baseline: 36,54,72,99, etc.

Option #4: Wacky mode, bonuses match display.

Players: Hot or cold randomly on each individual attribute.
Edit Lines Ratings: The values accurately reflect player ratings..

Option #5: Classic mode, corrected display.

Players: Hot or cold equally on all their attributes.
Edit Lines Ratings: Hacked to match the on-ice ratings. A hot player will be hot on all attributes, etc.