Toi

[drewst18]

Just arguing semantics...

We know what the screen shows, it shouldn't matter. Some want it as is, some want it changed. When its something like this, just play it how its made...

[Adam Oates]

Can you have more than two lines for special teams/4 on 4 (besides the PK)? For instance, St. Louis is using 3 power play units this year. How are 4 on 4 lines in OT decided: taking a random player off the regular lines or using the 4 on 4 lines? If it's the latter, you'd definitely need more options.

[fireholder]

Originally Posted by tward13

But it's not asking you how many minutes of game time on that screen. It's asking you how many minutes of ES time and you DON'T know how many minutes of ES time there will be anymore than you know how many minutes of PP or PK. What you do know is what % of whatever ES time there is that you'd like to allocate to each line.

That's why in games with lots of penalties 4th lines may get fewer chances. In effect what is happening is their peercentage of ES time isn't changing but their amount of time is because there are fewer ES minutes to allocate.

I always know the desired split of time for each line, what I don't know is how many minutes of any type of time (ES, PP, PK) there will be.

we'll have to play with it and tinker with it to know how it works. i doubt they will change anything early and at this point it seems a bit straightforward.

one cool feature with this system, which COULD be how it works, is that ES ice time (say 5 mins for line 4) is factored in to who to put on the ice even if there have been a lot of penalties.

let's say Bollig is a big PK guy and Frolik never plays PK at all. the third starts and the hawks have taken 5 penalties and Bollig has 6 mins of icetime already. Frolik has 3:30 and so the coach would have 3 options:

1) either doesn't play the 4th line any more

2) puts frolik out with 3rd, 2nd, or 1st liners to get him up to 5 as well

3) play the 4th line until all players are close to the IT mark.

actually, the BEST possible thing is that they leave it the way it is, but give us the tactics option to choose one of those top 3 things (for each of our 4 lines) for variation among linemates' icetime, of course having the option to just let a head coach do what he feels best as well.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by tward13

But it's not asking you how many minutes of game time on that screen. It's asking you how many minutes of ES time and you DON'T know how many minutes of ES time there will be anymore than you know how many minutes of PP or PK. What you do know is what % of whatever ES time there is that you'd like to allocate to each line.

That's why in games with lots of penalties 4th lines may get fewer chances. In effect what is happening is their peercentage of ES time isn't changing but their amount of time is because there are fewer ES minutes to allocate.

I always know the desired split of time for each line, what I don't know is how many minutes of any type of time (ES, PP, PK) there will be.

You make good points, however I would argue that at the beginning of the game I do know that I have 60 minutes of ES time. I don't know if I'll have any PP/PK time. The chances of having zero PP/PK time are very slim, but possible. What I do know is, when I make my game plan, I have 60 minutes of ES time to start the game.

At the end of the day, we all have our own coaching/managing styles and how we'd like to implement them. Maybe there's a possibility that this setting will be made as a choice for the user to pick either minutes or %, depending on their preference. That would solve the problem, would it not? Because honestly, we could argue all day which is better, and we both make good points for our argument. In the end, it's a win win if both options are available.

[erikthered]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

I'm thinking it works kind of like this (just speculation here btw).

You look at your ES line times as minutes, because there will always be 60 minutes in a game, regardless of PP/PK time. (Yes, there can be more than 60 min with OT, but there will never be less than 60 min). So you're setting your overall game strategy based on those 60 min. Then, as the game unfolds, your % of time for PP/PK will take effect and those ES min will be adjusted accordingly. It is not possible to know in advance if there will be 5, 10, 15 or whatever min of PP/PK time, but it is always possible to know there will be 60 min of game time.

At least that's the way I'm seeing it. Again, just speculation here. Hopefully we get a definitive answer from the Dev team.

Originally Posted by tward13

Then why not just allocate percentages of ES time rather than minutes that may or may not happen? You're no more sure of ES minutes than PP or PK, so why % for PP and PK and TOI for ES?

Originally Posted by scuffleball

My guess:

60 minutes in a game is known quantity.

No way of knowing how long a team will have on the PP/PK in each game, so you make it a PCT so it's doesn't matter if you have 1 PP or 15 PP.

Originally Posted by tward13

But it's not asking you how many minutes of game time on that screen. It's asking you how many minutes of ES time and you DON'T know how many minutes of ES time there will be anymore than you know how many minutes of PP or PK. What you do know is what % of whatever ES time there is that you'd like to allocate to each line.

That's why in games with lots of penalties 4th lines may get fewer chances. In effect what is happening is their peercentage of ES time isn't changing but their amount of time is because there are fewer ES minutes to allocate.

I always know the desired split of time for each line, what I don't know is how many minutes of any type of time (ES, PP, PK) there will be.

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

You make good points, however I would argue that at the beginning of the game I do know that I have 60 minutes of ES time. I don't know if I'll have any PP/PK time. The chances of having zero PP/PK time are very slim, but possible. What I do know is, when I make my game plan, I have 60 minutes of ES time to start the game.

At the end of the day, we all have our own coaching/managing styles and how we'd like to implement them. Maybe there's a possibility that this setting will be made as a choice for the user to pick either minutes or %, depending on their preference. That would solve the problem, would it not? Because honestly, we could argue all day which is better, and we both make good points for our argument. In the end, it's a win win if both options are available.

Most of what I would say to Tward has been said above, but the ES TOI is based on a hypothetical, penalty-free game. Actual TOI will vary based on the number of penalties and who has them. As a quick example, let's say that Kunitz-Malkin-Neal should play 21 minutes in an average game. If the Pens take a lot of penalties and are on the PK a lot, Malkin will see less time, perhaps just 19 minutes. However, if the opponent takes a lot of penalties, Malkin will see extra time because the Pens first PP stays out for almost 2/3 of the PP time, perhaps 23 minutes. But it's easy to say after-the-fact that he saw more or less time than planned, but that doesn't change to original plan for his time on ice.

Like I said, I really like the system that is there, I just wish the planned amount of time was labeled TOI, since that's what the after-the-fact statistic is called. I was also just curious if you could adjust the shift length. If you set a player to see 20 minutes of TOI, it'd be nice to set the team's shift length. He could then expect that player to have either 20 shifts of 1:00 or 25 shifts of :48 (whether that time actually happens depends on play in game--some shifts would be longer because you wouldn't change in the middle of an opponent's breakaway). I would like it if you could change this during game, too, and maybe for it to be period by period, that way players could see longer shifts in the beginning when they're fresh, and shorter ones later on. Maybe each line's shift length could be set, too, that way if you're late in a game, your first-liners see longer shifts than your third-liners.

Originally Posted by Adam Oates

Can you have more than two lines for special teams/4 on 4 (besides the PK)? For instance, St. Louis is using 3 power play units this year. How are 4 on 4 lines in OT decided: taking a random player off the regular lines or using the 4 on 4 lines? If it's the latter, you'd definitely need more options.

I was curious about this as well. Perhaps there could be a setting in the preferences to set the number of lines (for instance, ES-5 lines, PP-3 lines, 4v4-4 lines, etc.) I know the Pens frequently throw Crosby-Malkin-Neal out there when they need a boost on offense. It's not really an in game adjustment, because they see time together in pretty every game. It's kind of like the Hero Line back in NHL 2002 (I don't know if they still have that in EA's games). Additionally, teams regularly use more that 2 PK units in order to prevent them from getting stuck on the ice for too long and try to rotate as frequently as possible.

[tward13]

I guess I'll give up on this. What seems obvious to me, just isn't working for others.

[Bones26]

For what it's worth Tward13 I both understand and agree with your point regarding use of % when setting ES lines, even if this might occassion the use of some rudimentary math skills to translate in equivalent minutes...

It would I think also be easier to effect in-game changes in the ice time allocation between your lines if you wanted to juggle that due to game conditions. For example let's say sometime in the third period and you're maybe well ahead or too far behind so you might want to change the ice time given some lines and simply changing the % to be applied for the remainder of the game would be a lot easier / quicker than parsing the remaining game time between lines. Maybe there is someway to have the equivalent ES minutes be shown as well as you change the %, this would also help in the scenerio described above.

Or barring that perhaps the developers will take up Bluenoser suggestion to allow the user to pick either minutes or %, depending on their preference.

But if I may, I would like to return to my earlier post regarding how does this work if you want to fashion your game strategy on line matching. By definition if you line match you are largely letting the opposition dictate the ES minutes your lines will play, so I guess my question is 1) can you in fact line match as a game option? 2) if so, can it be toggled on / off during the game, or once set it remains for the whole game? and 3) if on, does this then negate the ES LT settings for your various lines as long as it's in effect?

Sorry for length of post.