Assigning Roles
 

I want to score more goals. I have a winger on my second line who has great shooting skills and great checking skills. When I go to assign him a role, Sniper (for example) will be a 3/3, while Backchecker (for example) is a 4/5. If I give him the sniper role, will my team suffer? WIll this winger not check at all?

From what I've found, he'll still check just not as frequently. Also the overall 'Tactic' of the team matters a ton too. If your offense is 'Shoot the Puck' then he'll likely fit in better than if the team is more focused on say a 'Dump and Chase' or 'Ultraconservative' team tactic.

In one of my games, I have a 2nd Line Sniper who's 4/4 (ironically 0 goals in 14 games despite 10 assists) but he does have 13 hits thus far.

As for whether the team will suffer, JeffR has said that the higher the #s the better overall (leading to the Backchecker probably being ideal?) but I think it's also highly tactic dependent.

With the only aim being "score more goals", it's better to put him in the Sniper role. The team's tactical score will be slightly weaker, but the increases to the player's offensive abilities from being in the Sniper role will likely offset the small movement towards lower tactical bonuses. Particularly when it's Backchecker, a defence-oriented role, that's the alternative - putting him in that will give him defensive bonuses and offensive penalties.

The role effects on individual players aren't absolute; he'll be a little worse defensively and better offensively as a Sniper, but not completely useless when checking, and it won't turn a second-liner into Ovechkin offensively.

And this all assumes he's the only one you're changing like that - if you force every player into offence-first roles despite poor fit scores, it'll wreck your tactical execution and do a lot more harm than good.

How bad is it if a role is rated 2/2 or 1/1? Should those be avoided?

If at all possible, yeah. But that may not be the case if you're getting near the bottom end of the lineup and need to fit somebody into a specific type of role. On your top lines, definitely stay away from that.

What if a player has 1/1, but it is listed a a "major countering role" for that game. Would it make sense to apply the role then?

Just in terms of the effect on ratings scores of each teams, yes. However, it's going to have a significant effect on the individual player's effectiveness because he's doing something that doesn't suit his strengths.

I would like to add a question regarding roles.
I'm still using assistant to add roles in my lines as I'm getting used to the system.

Before the match is good to change to roles to counter rivals or is better remain those roles? Does the players' form in the upcoming match will be affected by changing the roles in the last minute?

I hope my question is clear enough. :laugh:

Chaning them before/during games won't hurt their performance just because of the change - adjusting player roles like that is an important part of adjusting to opposing teams' players and styles. But that doesn't mean you need to change everything to be a countering role - you have to find a balance between countering the opposing team, and having your players play the roles you want them to play.

Understood, thank you very much! :cool:

I must say I'm finding these player roles quite tricky to get my head around as a newb (I've read the manuel). The second digit, after the slash, is how effective that role is to your TEAMS overall tactic (max of 5) and the first digit is how well your player executes that particular role?

So 3/3 would essentially mean the ROLE is okayish for the team tactic but the PLAYER is fine playing that actual role.

If it were 3/5, the ROLE would be perfect for the team tactic but the PLAYER is only okayish filling that actual role.

If it were 5/5, the ROLE would be perfect for the team tactic and the PLAYER would be a perfect fit for that actual role.

Am I right here?? Sorry for the basic questions btw.

Not quite - the second number is how effective the player is in that role under perfect circumstances. So for the 3/5 the player is normally excellent at the role (5) but because of where he's being used (probably one of the lower lines, or out of his best position) the amount he actually contributes to the team's overall tactical score is lower (3). If he was playing on the top line at his best position, he'd be 5/5.

Ah!! That makes sense.

It's great that you post directly here btw and clear up confusion etc. I'm going to play it again later so will have some more time to familiarise myself. Really good so far btw.

Yes it's a great game

After playing 2 seasons doing role's assingments by myself decided to let the Assistant Coach to do it and the team plays much better, I do the lines changes but let the A. Coach to assing roles and seems very much accurate and I can notice the performance in overall is much better than when I did it.

Just sharing my own experience.
The Player Roles are my least favorite feature of the game to be honest.

Early thoughts just make it feel like a bit of a random lottery trying to get the tactical advantage, I'm not really enjoying it.

Yeah, I'd rather see the player roles added to the action menu or somehow separate for the players rather than tied to the lines themselves. As is, it's my least favorite part of the game as well.

Well to each its own, i like it: the roles are tied with the lines so i would not like them to be separate. And gaining the advantage is not a lottery but i see it like small corrections that i make during the game until i gain 'momentum', it's quite realistic actually

But I'm just click on player roles randomly before and during each game hoping to see some with an advantage and then contemplating whether it's worth using that role.

Am I missing something, because that's how it feels to me.

The game itself is good and I like the idea of setting player roles etc, it's just this searching for an advantage is a bit tedious. Maybe I'm missing something here...

I don't think you are missing something here: to me it is just like having individual strategy talks with my players, for example if i am up 3 goals in the third period i check to see if there are more defensive roles suited for my first liners and so on. I guess this can be tedious but from a coaching perspective, can become tedious in teal life too