The New Tactical System

[JeffR]

Since the new tactical system is one of the largest changes from FHM2 to FHM3, I've posted the manual's description of it below for quick access. If you have questions about the system, please post them here.

Tactics and Tactical Roles

FHM3's new tactical system is built around four concepts: Tactics, which form the basis of a team's overall system and determine its style of play, Tactical Roles, which control the manner in which individual players approach the game and contribute to the effectiveness of their team's tactics, the Tactical Battle, which takes place in every game and influences the game's outcome by deciding which team is more effective at implementing their system during the game, and Global Tactics, which allow some customization of the team's behaviour, particularly with regard to line selection. Every tactic requires that the team fill specific tactical roles associated with it, and the better a team's players are at filling those roles, the more successful the team will be at playing with that tactic. A small, speedy team won't be very effective at playing a bruising, hard-hitting game, but they may find success with a tactic that emphasizes rapid breakouts and exploiting their speed advantage.



Tactics

A team's system is built by choosing four tactics: offensive, defensive, power play, and penalty killing. If you're familiar with previous versions of FHM, the tactics are built from the more detailed settings that used to be edited directly, such as specific player locations for each possible puck control situation, and special instructions for the players on how to handle certain situations, like zone entries and forechecking. Now, rather than having to piece together all of that yourself, you can simply choose a prebuilt tactic that will handle the "dirty work" for you.

• Offensive Tactic: Guides the team's behaviour while it's in control of the puck during even-strength situations (5-on-5, 4-on-4, or 3-on-3.). This includes breakouts from its own end of the ice, advancing through mid-ice, entry into the offensive zone, and play in the offensive zone. The tactic may place particular emphasis on one or more of those situation. Included are specific instructions on how to enter the offensive zone (skating the puck in, passing it in, or dumping it into the corner) and whether or not the team should tend to shoot more often, sacrifice lower-percentage shots to create higher-percentage chances with a pass, or take a balanced approach.
  
• Defensive Tactic: Guides the team's behaviour while the opposing team is in control of the puck during even-strength situations (5-on-5, 4-on-4, or 3-on-3.) This includes forechecking, alignments and checking through the neutral zone, and defensive zone coverage. The tactic may place particular emphasis on one or more of those situation. Included are specific instructions on the degree of physical play (lots of hitting and aggressiveness at one end of the scale, avoiding penalties at all costs at the other) and the level of risk the team will take while forechecking (active forechecking that will create more turnovers but also more defensive breakdowns at one end of the scale, a more passive and cautious system at the other end.)
  
• Power Play Tactic: Guides the team's behaviour while the team is in a power play situation (5-on-4, 5-on-3, or 4-on-3.) This replaces the team's regular offensive behaviour, typically with a more offense-oriented approach that tries to exploit the man advantage. If the team loses control of the puck, some defensive settings are retained from the even-strength defensive tactic.
  
• Penalty Killing Tactic: Guides the team's behaviour while the team is in a penalty killing situation (4-on-5, 3-on-5, or 3-on-4.) This replaces the team's regular defensive behaviour, typically with a more careful, defense-oriented approach that tries to kill the penalty by disrupting the opposing team's offense. If the team wins control of the puck, some offensive settings are retained from the even-strength offensive tactic.

So, the starting point in designing your overall system is choosing a specific tactic in each of these four categories. Look over your roster, try to identify what your team's strengths and weaknesses are, and then read over the descriptions of each tactic to find one that suits your team.



Familiarity

You can switch between tactics at any time (except during games). However, a team can't learn new systems overnight. While your team is learning a new tactic, it won't be quite as effective with it. The "Familiarity" indicator shows how well-acquainted your team is with a tactic: red means almost no experience, green means complete understanding of it, with shades of progression in between. As long as you continue using the tactic, familiarity will increase. If you switch away from, its familiarity level will drop (at a rate about half the speed it increased by.) So, if you attempt to install a new tactic and don't like the results, your team probably won't have forgotten to play the old one yet, and you can switch back.

Players may also become upset when a team switches away from a tactic they're very familiar with to one they don't know. This is more likely to happen if your head coach (i.e., you, if you're playing as GM/Coach) has weak motivation abilities and/or your captain isn't a good leader. If a player does suffer a negative reaction to a tactical change, he'll remain irritated for about a month before accepting the change. If you change tactics before that period ends, he may sulk for another month if he doesn't like the new one, either (unless you're returning to one your team is more familiar with.)

Tactical Roles

Tactical roles are, along with positioning and special situation instructions, the building blocks of tactics. Every tactic specifies what type of tactical roles must be filled on its first three lines and defensive pairs for the tactic to be executed properly (if a team uses a fourth line and/or pair, it can set the tactics for those freely.) These requirements take the form of larger categories of roles, within each of which are several individual tactical roles that may be used to fill the requirement equally well.



Once a team's lines are selected, there are two tactical role slots below each even-strength line spot (offensive on top, defensive below) and one below each power play and penalty killing line spot. Clicking on that slot will bring up a list of tactical roles that can be given to the player. The currently-selected role will be outlined in white; primary roles (the ideal ones to fill the slot) will be outlined in green, and secondary roles (also acceptable, but at a slight penalty to the tactic's effectiveness) will be outlined in red.



A tactic's role requirements aren't specifically attached to individual positions within the line (or defensive pair), so if a "Playmaker" role is required, it can be given to any of the LW, C, or RW. However, you can only fill the requirement once - if you make the RW your playmaker, you can't give the LW that role (unless the tactic lists two playmaker requirements for that line, which will happen in some cases.) Once a role is filled, the popup for other players will indicate that it's no longer available for selection and which player is currently occupying it.

Tactical Fit



Assigning suitable tactical roles to your players is very important. In the upper-right corner of each tactical role description in the popup, and on the role selection box on the line display, is a series of dots. The more dots you see for a player, the better he is at performing that tactical role. Your team's overall performance with a tactic is very dependent on how well your players fit their roles, so try to amass the highest number of dots you can. If you're seeing a lot of 1- and 2-dot players, you may want to reconsider the tactic your using, as it may not be appropriate for the kind of players for your team (or, you can find some players that can execute it properly.

Even-strength Roles

It may be a little confusing at first to see two different roles assigned to players at even strength, particularly if one of them is not of a type you'd normally associate with an offensive or defensive role - say, for example, goalscorer in the defensive slot. What this amounts to is telling the player that you're not particularly concerned with what he's doing defensively, and that he needs to be extremely focused on his offensive production - in other words, don't worry too much about backchecking while your team is defending, but always be ready to head up-ice quickly once you regain possession.

Game Rating Effects

The tactical roles have a very large influence on how the Game Rating (GR) scores are calculated, particularly the Offensive and Defensive sub-ratings. Successes and failures in ways that are particularly important to the role are rewarded or penalized in larger amounts, while things that are less important affect the score to a lesser degree. For example, consider a player who loses a fight but gets an assist in a game. If the player had an Enforcer role, his GR would suffer significantly because of the fight loss, and only be rewarded modestly for the assist (he's out there to fight, not create offense; while that's a nice bonus, it's not his primary job.) However, if he had the Setup Man role, the penalty for losing the fight wouldn't be as large, and the bonus for the assist would be larger (winning fights isn't essential to his role, but setting up goals is, and he succeeded at that.) Remember, the GR scores are an indication of how well the player is performing the job he has been assigned - not just a simple measure of overall performance.

Tactical Role Attribute Effects

Individual Tactical Roles will modify the ratings of the player slightly to reflect what he's been told to focus on. The descriptions of the roles will give you an idea of what exactly will be changed; for example, a player with the Punishing Defenceman role will have his Hitting attribute increased so he hits more often and with greater success. However, there are also ratings penalties applied in equal measure - that big-hitting defenceman will lose some of his Positioning ability, as he'll tend to get out of position while looking to make a big hit.

Special Effects

In addition to the attribute changes mentioned above, some tactical roles have additional special effects while they're on the ice, changing the attributes of opposing players or teammates:

Goons and Enforcers will reduce opponent's bravery, unless countered by presence of the opponent's goons and/or enforcers.

Agitators will lower the Temperament attribute of opponents, leading them to take more penalties.

Crease-clearing Defencemen will lower the screening abilities of opposing forwards.

Shadows will reduce the ability of the opposing line's best player to get into scoring position and make plays.

The Tactical Battle



Every game is a struggle between opposing coaches to successfully influence the course of the game through the way their team executes its tactics. The relative effectiveness of each team's tactics, and the way they interact with the other team's, will determine which team holds the tactical advantage, and to which degree. During a game, each coach can (and should) make adjustments to his players' tactical roles to either win back the tactical advantage if he's lost it, or counter the opponent's efforts to do the same. There are significant player performance effects that occur when a team has the tactical advantage, and penalties when it does not. Getting outcoached can hurt even a team with a talent advantage over its opponent - or a good coaching staff can elevate a team beyond its skill level.

Countering Roles:



A team's tactical roles determine how well it can execute a particular tactic, but they may also provide effective counters to an opponent's tactic. While on the Strategy screen (both pregame and while play is underway), players whose roles are particularly good at disrupting an opponent's tactics are marked as either major (red bar) for the most effective counters, or minor (yellow bar) for the next-most-effective ones.

Changing player roles to add more counters will reduce the opponent's tactical effectiveness, potentially winning back the tactical advantage. Be careful, however, not to sacrifice too much of your player's fit for their roles - if you gain a bunch of red bars at the loss of many "dots" of role fit scores, that may not be a good tradeoff.

Coaching Advantage

The coaching advantage, determined at the start of the game, decides which coach is better at implementing their particular system. It considers their Tactics attribute (and possibly the Tactics attribute of any particularly tactically-gifted assistants, but only to a limited extent - a good assistant will make a head coach who's a bad tactician better, but not good) and the coach's preferred style - a coach who likes to take a very offensive approach with little physical play won't be as successful making a grinding, heavy-hitting defense-oriented tactic work. The results of each coach's calculation (with the home coach getting a slight bonus) are compared to each other, and the higher one wins the coaching advantage.

The current coaching advantage is displayed during the game by the coach icon at the upper-right - the coach with the advantage will be displayed, with a small crown above his head.

Holding the coaching advantage does not change the actual effects of a tactic; all it does is confer on the coach the ability to see what the other team's tactical roles are set to and give him the "last change" on role adjustments, making it easier for him to maintain or reclaim the tactical advantage. So, if you have the coaching advantage, you can make your changes knowing exactly what the other coach is doing, and is about to do, with his players' roles. Or, if you don't have it, the AI coach gets the same edge over you.

The coaching advantage can shift as the game is underway - it's recalculated at the start of each period, and the between-period calculations consider the effects of the Momentum in the last period - if a team outshot and/or physically dominated its opponent in the last 20 minutes, its chance of winning the coaching advantage for the next period is improved. There is a momentum indicator at the top-right corner of the game screen (the bar with the visitor logo at one end and the home one at the other) that will indicate which direction the game's momentum is currently running in.

Tactical Advantage

In addition to the effects individual tactical roles have on players, there are even bigger bonuses to be won - or penalties to be suffered - if the team does or does not have the tactical advantage.

Which team currently holds the tactical advantage is calculated by calculating an overall effectiveness score for the team by adding up how well each of its tactics' required roles are being filled (indicated by the dots displayed beside their name in the strategy view), then lowering that total depending on how many Countering Roles (and what kind) are present in the opposing team's lineup.

The game screen shows which team holds the tactical advantage at the top-right, just to the left of the coaching advantage indicator and below the momentum one. The team with the tactical advantage will have its logo highlighted, the other one will be faded.

A team that holds the tactical advantage is successfully imposing their playing style on the game, and, while play is underway, will have all of their players receive additional attribute bonuses for up to three player attributes that are specific to the tactic being used in the current situation (i.e., if the team has control of the puck during 5-on-5 play, it will get the bonuses associated with their offensive tactic; if it's killing a penalty, it well get the bonuses from its PK tactic.) The exact bonuses are not revealed, but the nature of the tactic should give you a strong hint at what they are - a tactic calling for rapid puck movement can be assumed to be giving a bonus to passing skills if its team has the tactical advantage.

The team that doesn't hold the tactical advantage suffers the opposite effect - they get penalties imposed on up to three attributes. This reflects the breakdown of their tactic, exposing its weaknesses. Similar to how the bonuses reflect ways in which the tactic can succeed, the penalties are derived from the ways it can fail. If the puck-moving tactic mentioned in the previous paragraph loses the advantage, its team may find itself getting caught in poor defensive position more often (lowered positioning and/or defensive read skills) as they turn over the puck in precarious situations.

The relative degree of the tactical advantage is considered when deciding how many bonuses or penalties to award. A wide disparity between the two team's tactical effectiveness means three attributes will be affected, a narrower one will only mean one bonus or penalty. If the difference is particularly extreme, the amount of the bonuses and penalties will be increased.

Changing Roles

Coaches are allowed to change tactical roles while a period is underway. Tactical advantage is recalculated whenever a player's tactical role is changed, so it's possible to regain the advantage during play by making an in-period change.

Global Tactics

In addition to the special situations that are controlled by individual tactics, each coach also gets some leeway to set some particular tendencies for his team. These can be adjusted in the Global Tactics box of the Strategy screen.



Shot Targeting allows you to tell your team to attempt at a certain spot in the net, in order to take advantage of a perceived weakness in the opposing goalie. Attempting to hit a specific target (anything other than "variable") will result in a higher percentage of shots that miss the net entirely.

Offensive Risk-Taking determines how your team behaves when they have the puck. The low-risk options mean they will usually only make "safe" plays that are unlikely to give the puck away. High-risk options will give the puck away much more often, but are also more likely to generate spectacular results like breakaways and other high-percentage scoring chances.

Tempo dictates the pace at which the team will play when they have the puck. Low tempos mean they will tend to slow things down, useful while killing penalties or protecting a lead. Higher tempos mean quicker decision-making, which can be riskier but can generate more offensive chances in a shorter period of time.

Pull Goalie (Down by 1 Goal) specifies the maximum number of seconds remaining in the game before you will attempt to pull your goalie for an extra attacker while down by one goal.

Pull Goalie (Down by 2 Goals) specifies the maximum number of seconds remaining in the game before you will attempt to pull your goalie for an extra attacker while down by two goals.

Goalie Switch determines how quickly your goalie will be pulled if he gives up several goals early or in rapid succession (assuming you don't pull him manually.)

Offensive Zone Faceoff Priority will determine which of your lines have the highest priority when a faceoff takes place in the other team's end of the ice. Your lines are listed to the left, and their priority in the dropdowns - if the 3rd Line is set to "1st", for example, it's likely to be sent out when an offensive zone faceoff occurs and it's well-rested enough to play.

Defensive Zone Faceoff Priority: will determine which of your lines have the highest priority when a faceoff takes place in your own defensive zone and you're capable of changing lines (i.e., not after you've iced the puck.) Your lines are listed to the left, and their priority in the dropdowns - if the 3rd Line is set to "1st", for example, it's likely to be sent out when a defensive zone faceoff occurs and it's well-rested enough to play.

Line Matching will determine which of your lines will tend to be matched against which of your opponent's lines (assuming you don't directly intervene in their selection.) Your lines are listed on the left, the line you want to try to match them to is listed on the right. You're more likely to succeed in matching when you have home ice, since you're allowed the last line change.

[Mecza]

I guess I'll be the first to say this tactical revamp sounds really cool! Can't wait to try it later.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't enjoy assigning player positions to all zones on the ice for offense & defense for all the lines. It became especially tedious when I wanted to change tactics because of injuries. I'm glad the depth is still there but it looks like it will be presented in a way that has changes implemented at a faster pace.

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Thank you. And please take into account that it is only the beginning. We always look for ideas to improve the system and/or make the job for the user easier. So please share all ideas/feedback/critics with us here, that helps us a lot.

Originally Posted by Mecza

I guess I'll be the first to say this tactical revamp sounds really cool! Can't wait to try it later.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't enjoy assigning player positions to all zones on the ice for offense & defense for all the lines. It became especially tedious when I wanted to change tactics because of injuries. I'm glad the depth is still there but it looks like it will be presented in a way that has changes implemented at a faster pace.

[Nithoniniel]

EDIT: Restructured the post for better clarity.

I really like what you are trying to achieve with this.

My initial reaction is that it's far too restrictive in many ways. I jumped into a game and tried to replicate the tactical setup of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but for the longest time I didn't even get close. Only after spending a ton of time in a trial-and-error testing of different tactics did I manage this, and there was still a bunch of very obvious problems. The issue that stared me right in the face was that it was very cumbersome. As I said, I basically had to resort to trial-and-error to find tactics that gave me the kind of roles I was looking for.

The root of the problem is that the tactics you choose is way too quick to tell you how to use your lines. They should be an overall system for how you go about your business with the puck, and without it. Instead I often get told that my Soviet-inspired tactic forces my third line to be a shutdown line with two defensive-minded forwards and an enforcer, as an example. It's the same with the pairings. I can totally see why a certain tactic might tell me that I'll have an offensive D-man on every pairing, but I can't see why it would tell me that the first pairing will have two offensive guys, the second pairing will have balance, and the third pairing will have two shutdown guys. That should be up to the player.

What I think is missing is the ability to complement the overall tactic by designating specific line roles. I might for example want a cycling system with two scoring lines, a shutdown line and energy line, or I could want the same cycling system with three scoring lines and a shutdown line (similar to Chicago setup). Both options fit under the cycling tactic, but give you more options on how to handle the lines without feeling handcuffed.

That would also keep the overall tactic limited to what it should effect, and gives you more tactical depth. The game often tries to push me into having the old-fashioned top six, shutdown line and energy fourth line setup, but most of the league uses three scoring lines noawayds.

You'd get a three-layered system:

1) The overall tactics that exist now. Determines overall style of play.
2) Line roles and designations. Examples would be a matchup line (Toews-type line), scoring line (Kane-type line), Shutdown line (Krüger-line) and energy line (The archetypical bottom six line)
3) Based on the two first steps, you get individual roles. A shutdown line in a Soviet-inspired system might look different from one in a more typical north american system. The over-arching theme will be the choice in step 1, with modification for deployment from step 2.

Connected to this is something that really need to change. In several tactics, including some of the Soviet-inspired ones, I get forced to have an enforcer on the third line. I barely know any system or team that actually uses one that high in the lineup. It's almost an extinct role as it is, and in the cases it's being used it's almost always on the fourth line. That it's harder to find a system that actually uses three scoring lines, like almost every NHL team does nowadays, than it is to find one with enforcers on a top nine role is absolutely perplexing.

The roles on the PP gets a bit confusing as well. I get players that get designated with having a two-way forward role, but that's not exactly a useful role on a powerplay. Most systems utilize a quarterback, point shooters, shooters from the boards, puck retrievers and screeners as roles.

Haven't checked out the PK systems yet, but I might add some feedback on them here.

[beezer2434]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

Thank you. And please take into account that it is only the beginning. We always look for ideas to improve the system and/or make the job for the user easier. So please share all ideas/feedback/critics with us here, that helps us a lot.

Definitely love the new tactics system! After playing around with it, my issue is that it can be too restrictive of the roles. Is it possible to not restrict what we can choose for a player? At first i thought it was a bug, but noticed its how it is designed.

The biggest issue is only having a grinder role available for certain players who are goal scorers/snipers when trying to set up lines.

Also, is there a way to see in scouting reports which players can have certain tactic roles?

[Sebastian Palkowski]

Originally Posted by beezer2434

Is there a way to see in scouting reports which players can have certain tactic roles?

How good a player can fit a roles can be seen on the role popup (the small dots in the top right corner). But you bring up a good idea: we will add the top roles of a player to his player info screen. Thanks.

The rest of your questions I leave for Jeff.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Nithoniniel

I really like what you are trying to achieve with this.

My initial reaction is that it's far too restrictive in many ways. I jumped into a game and tried to create a tactical set-up that resembles what the Toronto Maple Leafs use, and I don't even get close. I try different tactics, but I can barely get a line to be set up as it should. Forget having three innately offensive players on the same line, like JVR - Bozak - Marner (Edit: Found some systems that this worked on at least the first line). I always get forced to put one of them as a grinder. The team uses Nylander - Matthews - Hyman as a third line, but I just get told to put one of them as enforcers and the other two as two-way forwards at the best. I guess that can be worked around by putting them higher up in the lineup and just give them less ice time.

My feeling is still that you should stop trying to be so restrictive in what line does what. Systems rarely work like that. They don't tell you that the third line needs to be defensive and grinding, while the first line has to be offensive inclined.

As I said, extremely interesting but very cumbersome right now. I've spent ages on this without real success right now. A big problem there is that the tactic you choose gives you very little information on what kind of roles will be available.

Ideally, I'd suggest having an overall tactic like you have, but the ability to designate a line tactic. I might for example want a cycling system with two scoring lines, a shutdown line and energy line, or I could want the same cycling system with three scoring lines and a shutdown line (similar to Chicago setup). Both options fit under the cycling tactic, but give you more options on how to handle the lines without feeling handcuffed.

Oh, and something that just has to change. I barely know any system or team that actually uses an enforcer on a third line. It's almost an extinct role, and in the cases it's been used it's almost always on a fourth line. Yet even the Soviet-inspired systems try to force me to use an enforcer on my third line which is absolutely perplexing. Meanwhile, I haven't found a system yet that allows me to have three lines with roles that are at least balanced towards some kind of scoring.

Most of the league uses three scoring lines nowadays, but the game tries to push me into the old-fashioned two scoring lines, one shutdown line and a fourth line setup.

Here's what I would do:

1) Tactics for with puck and without puck like now.
2) Tactics for lines, perhaps loosely based on 1. You can have: Matchup line (a Toews line), Scoring line (Kane line), Shutdown line (Krüger line), Energy line (Typical bottom six line)
3) Depending on 1 and 2, you get roles. A physical tactic will likely have a grinder on each of those line types, while a Soviet-inspired system will almost always (not on energy lines) have some kind of playmaker or offensive forward there.

Most of the above applies to pairings as well. I don't see why a system would tell me that the first pairing will have two-way guys, but the second pairing will for sure have a defensive d-man.

Edit: Also, Injury Proneness doesn't seem to work. Everybody gets a 0 or 1 there, and it can't be edited. Joffrey Lupul is an iron man according to my game. Minor thing so I didn't want to create a thread for it, but I didn't see a thread for that kind of things either.

We've been working on some ways to add more flexibility to the role selection. It was even more rigid than it is now at one point, which definitely wasn't my intention with the original design, for the exact reasons you elaborated on.

Bear in mind that some of the systems are more historical in nature, since their eras won't work properly without those sort of tactics - and Herb Brooks, for all his Soviet inspiration, also had no problem giving a decent amount of ice time to guys like Nick Fotiu, Basil McRae and Randy McKay (when McKay was still a 200+ PIM guy.) I considered restricting tactics to specific years, but in the end figured people would rather have the flexibility to choose an anachronistic system if they want it. It's made it a little trickier to keep the AI from making odd choices, though.

I think the editor view of injury proneness ratings is broken at the moment (in addition to the historical IP's also being wrong in the database), so that's probably the reason you're seeing the odd numbers. Lupul's definitely at the very high end of the scale.

[Nithoniniel]

Originally Posted by JeffR

We've been working on some ways to add more flexibility to the role selection. It was even more rigid than it is now at one point, which definitely wasn't my intention with the original design, for the exact reasons you elaborated on.

Bear in mind that some of the systems are more historical in nature, since their eras won't work properly without those sort of tactics - and Herb Brooks, for all his Soviet inspiration, also had no problem giving a decent amount of ice time to guys like Nick Fotiu, Basil McRae and Randy McKay (when McKay was still a 200+ PIM guy.) I considered restricting tactics to specific years, but in the end figured people would rather have the flexibility to choose an anachronistic system if they want it. It's made it a little trickier to keep the AI from making odd choices, though.

I think the editor view of injury proneness ratings is broken at the moment (in addition to the historical IP's also being wrong in the database), so that's probably the reason you're seeing the odd numbers. Lupul's definitely at the very high end of the scale.

Thanks for the answer. I restructured the post to be more clear but you were too fast for me

I don't have a problem with enforcers being an option, to be honest. You certainly outline very well why it should be. My problem was that one of my three guys were restricted to enforcer or goon as the only option. I see the case for it as an option, but not as a requisite.

I do think that the option to give roles to lines like I outlined would be a way to increase the flexibility of the system within the confines of the overall system. The choices for each line could be made restricted by the tactic used as well, to make sure that some of the older systems don't go with unrealistic line distributions. Just an idea.

You might also notice that I added some feedback about the PP roles on the original post. I could add that positioning isn't exactly clear. Let's say I use a 1-3-1 system. That means I have one guy on the point, one on each board, one in the high slot and one net front presence.

It makes sense that if you make someone a 'screener', he is the net front presence regardless of position. Does the other D-man spot then slide into his position? What if you want someone to take the faceoffs but then take position on one of the boards?

PP setup would definitely benefit from having a more graphic overview. Say you choose 1-3-1, you then get to see shirts spread out over a zone so that you know where you put who. Then you could give roles depending on that. Perhaps you want the guy in the high slot to act like a second screen, or you could put him as a sniper. Who takes faceoffs could be designated as an option instead. It would make things very much clearer.

I've checked the PK tactics, but I don't really have any feedback on that. Which is probably a good thing, can't think of how it could work better.

Edit: Just want to reiterate how much I like the system. A good example would be Gardiner. Not the best player in general (even though I did improve him a bit), but you can put him as a mobile D-man, that he is supremely suited for, on both role options and get very good results from him. Exactly as it should be.

[Torgonius]

I'd love to see the option to see player ratings as options on the drop down on the 'dressed' list. Suggestions:
Offensive - rating for shooting, playmaking, etc..
Defensive - ratings for defense, faceoffs,
Mental (or something) - Conditioning, Character, Hockey Sense

[Nithoniniel]

As a further note, it was the Tarasov system that had an enforcer on the third line. That seems to be the actual classic Soviet systems, and not the Brooks system you thought I meant, Jeff.

The Brooks system on the other hand did not limit one player to enforcer or goon, so I'm guessing the two might have been switched there?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Nithoniniel

As a further note, it was the Tarasov system that had an enforcer on the third line. That seems to be the actual classic Soviet systems, and not the Brooks system you thought I meant, Jeff.

The Brooks system on the other hand did not limit one player to enforcer or goon, so I'm guessing the two might have been switched there?

Hmm, could be, I noticed the Tarasov enforcer last week and made a note to change it, but if it's still there something's gone wrong. I'll get it straightened out.

[Stealcompany]

I am playing on a mac in I can't see how i can change tactics in either the sandbox mode or the road to glory. For example my 5 on 5 set-up is stuck at ultraconservative offence and dump and chase. I can't see where i get to the screens that let me change tactics or player roles.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Stealcompany

I am playing on a mac in I can't see how i can change tactics in either the sandbox mode or the road to glory. For example my 5 on 5 set-up is stuck at ultraconservative offence and dump and chase. I can't see where i get to the screens that let me change tactics or player roles.

On the tactics screen, click directly on the name of the tactic and it'll pop up a list of options you can change it to.

[Hoiles]

Originally Posted by Torognius

I'd love to see the option to see player ratings as options on the drop down on the 'dressed' list. Suggestions:
Offensive - rating for shooting, playmaking, etc..
Defensive - ratings for defense, faceoffs,
Mental (or something) - Conditioning, Character, Hockey Sense

Good suggestion. I'd also like to see physical ratings (skating, strength, stamina, etc). They're generally more useful than stats in forming lines and tactics IMO.

[Stealcompany]

Originally Posted by JeffR

On the tactics screen, click directly on the name of the tactic and it'll pop up a list of options you can change it to.

Thanks for the quick response Jeff.

For me, the name of the tactic looks like a link (a very nice blue) but no matter how many times I click on it there is no joy in mudville (to borrow a baseball allusion). In fact the cursor doesn't change when i mouse over the names, which is usually what happens when I come across a link.

While this is an irritation it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the rest of the game.

[Torgonius]

Originally Posted by Stealcompany

Thanks for the quick response Jeff.

For me, the name of the tactic looks like a link (a very nice blue) but no matter how many times I click on it there is no joy in mudville (to borrow a baseball allusion). In fact the cursor doesn't change when i mouse over the names, which is usually what happens when I come across a link.

While this is an irritation it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the rest of the game.

I ran into this, too, but realized it was because I chose GM only when I set the game up. I created a new game as GM/Coach, and all worked except the 4v4/3v3.

[JeffR]

Yeah, that could be it. Stealcompany, were you in GM-only mode?

[Stealcompany]

yes I was. That would explain things. I'll try changing to GM & coach and see what happens.

[playball335]

I have a small cosmetic request for tactics. Would it be possible to add 'Off' and 'Def' to each tactical 'row', or at least 'O' and 'D' to better clarify the role being chosen?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by playball335

I have a small cosmetic request for tactics. Would it be possible to add 'Off' and 'Def' to each tactical 'row', or at least 'O' and 'D' to better clarify the role being chosen?

Makes sense, I'll see if we can add it.