Tactical Tendencies

[Geekusoid]

Wondering if someone can point me in the right direction of thought. I'm a fan of hockey, but having never played I'm rough on the understandings of the different types of forecheck, breakouts and etc.

The individual tactical roles has a nice way of suggesting which role best suits a potential player based on the number indicator.

Tactical tendencies and formations do not. Is there a way, without having something like that added to the game, that a newer player like myself can quickly look at a line, or set of players and determine things like "They would work well with 2-3 Press" or "Crash the net would work well here".

I noticed in one sticky thread with the role descriptions, the google doc has links to videos but I find that that tells me more what it is compared to should I use that

[DFyvie]

Line by line formations can be tricky but you should only be picking tactics (on a line by line basis) that suit that particular line. If you have a line that doesn't seem to fit any of the descriptions, modify the players on the line until it does.

Many of the tactics rely on smart two-way centres. Don't overload your line with too many players that are similar - try to find players that compliment each other. I typically work only in pairs, then find a 3rd guy that adds something that the pair is lacking (like a playmaker and goalscorer as a pair, then you add a 2-way left winger that can keep up with the other two and help out defensively).

I usually have a scoring line, 2 two-way lines, and a shutdown line to match against the other team's top line.

Get to know your team. Find out what their strengths and weaknesses are and choose the formations that work for it. If the team is weak in a particular area then make a trade or two. It took me a long time to realise that I should choose the tactics that fit my team as opposed to choosing tactics I wanted my team to play. Coach the team you have, not the team you want to have.

I hope some of this helps in answering your question. What team do you usually play? Add some screenshots and we can give some suggestions.

[Geekusoid]

Originally Posted by DFyvie

Line by line formations can be tricky but you should only be picking tactics (on a line by line basis) that suit that particular line. If you have a line that doesn't seem to fit any of the descriptions, modify the players on the line until it does.

Many of the tactics rely on smart two-way centres. Don't overload your line with too many players that are similar - try to find players that compliment each other. I typically work only in pairs, then find a 3rd guy that adds something that the pair is lacking (like a playmaker and goalscorer as a pair, then you add a 2-way left winger that can keep up with the other two and help out defensively).

I usually have a scoring line, 2 two-way lines, and a shutdown line to match against the other team's top line.

Get to know your team. Find out what their strengths and weaknesses are and choose the formations that work for it. If the team is weak in a particular area then make a trade or two. It took me a long time to realise that I should choose the tactics that fit my team as opposed to choosing tactics I wanted my team to play. Coach the team you have, not the team you want to have.

I hope some of this helps in answering your question. What team do you usually play? Add some screenshots and we can give some suggestions.

I play in custom leagues. I get the idea that you want to pick strategies that suits your team and not try to make the team fit a strategy. What I was asking was figuring out which line strategies fit where.

Since the forum here seems less active than some places, I went ahead and started working on a spreadsheet to work out these calculations for me to help determine, for a specific line, which strategy would work best for it (based on a percentage value). So we'll see how that goes.

[DFyvie]

Originally Posted by Geekusoid

I play in custom leagues. I get the idea that you want to pick strategies that suits your team and not try to make the team fit a strategy. What I was asking was figuring out which line strategies fit where.

Since the forum here seems less active than some places, I went ahead and started working on a spreadsheet to work out these calculations for me to help determine, for a specific line, which strategy would work best for it (based on a percentage value). So we'll see how that goes.

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'which line strategies fit where'.

Line 1: Offensive alignment
Line 2: Two-way alignment
Line 3: Checking alignment
Line 4: Two-way/Energy/Physical alignment

Typically most teams adopt the above formula.. sometimes you see the second line a checking line and the third line a two-way line depending upon the team's depth (very high quality checkers/young unproven secondary scorers). Typically teams match lines 1 vs 3 in the line matching as well.

The strategies will work across all the lines, but it is how the line behaves that is crucial. Employ the sliders at the top of each Tactics-Unit page to adjust how offensive/defensive/aggressive each line is. In other words, you can have your top line play 'Trap' defensive when they don't have the puck, but the sliders determine how that line behaves on the ice.

This line is my top line. It is aggressive on the attack with an aggressive pressure posture.


This line is my 'shutdown' line. It is more conservative offensively and backchecks hard without the puck.



I really hope this helps. Sorry for the massive images.

[Geekusoid]

Oh this totally helps, but the whole thing I'm trying to talk about is that area on the lines called Tactical Settings and figuring out the best way to determine which one of those tactics best suits the lines I have set up.

[FrenchMatt]

I agree, in former versions (until 4 i think?) you had a suitability rating for tactics. I don't understand why it vanished but it was useful

[DFyvie]

Originally Posted by Geekusoid

Oh this totally helps, but the whole thing I'm trying to talk about is that area on the lines called Tactical Settings and figuring out the best way to determine which one of those tactics best suits the lines I have set up.

Yeah, I get it. I guess what I'm trying to say is you need to see what your line does well according to the player's ratings and read the descriptions that best apply to the players on that line.

It means there's a lot of fiddling around and going back of forth from the tactics screen to the roster screen until you get a good handle on who's good at what on your team. And if you're relatively new to hockey, or even a casual fan it probably means a pretty steep learning curve.

[DFyvie]

Originally Posted by FrenchMatt

I agree, in former versions (until 4 i think?) you had a suitability rating for tactics. I don't understand why it vanished but it was useful

I personally hated it tbh, but I can why people relied on it. An option to turn it on/off would be ideal.

[Colorado]

Originally Posted by DFyvie

It means there's a lot of fiddling around and going back of forth from the tactics screen to the roster screen until you get a good handle on who's good at what on your team. And if you're relatively new to hockey, or even a casual fan it probably means a pretty steep learning curve.

For me, this is the area of the game which is lacking most - getting this right will make or break FHM 7 imo.

It's too fiddly and it feels like you are making changes blindly, especially when trying to judge if something is working or not.