Position change

[Muldzy]

I am the gm or Arizona and I want Crouse to play RW so I have played him there for the last two seasons. I was looking through the forums and I found one talking about position changes and it said to do it through practice and I can't figure it out. Can anyone help? I am not the head coach.

[uknownick]

You can edit the Unused practice spot in Practice. "New Position" is under "tactics (bottom left hand side). I changed Duchene to a RW and he has been on fire playing with Mackinon on the first line. My scout call them the poor man's Stamkos and Giroud . We won the Stanley cup in the first season.

[Muldzy]

You can edit the Unused practice spot in Practice. "New Position" is under "tactics (bottom left hand side). I changed Duchene to a RW and he has been on fire playing with Mackinon on the first line. My scout call them the poor man's Stamkos and Giroud . We won the Stanley cup in the first season.

Thank you!

[Shindigs]

This generally won't work unless the stars align and that player actually will be cool with learning a new position. Even if that is the case he will still be a C/RW rather than a "real" RW and any and all records he sets in his career will be counted as C records, even though he doesn't play there. For those reasons I just use the savegame editor to swap the player's position value to RW after he's played at least 1 full season there, as that will actually make the game treat any records that player sets as RW records. Really wish players would learn roles in a dynamic way like FHM does it, though in that game it's stupid how fast it is. Here it's the opposite, with it being all but impossible for a LW to learn how to play RW at 15 years old; Because that makes perfect sense.

[nino33]

A change in Position connects greatly to the hidden Versatility Attribute...a low rating would likely result in little to no success learning a new position

Also the starting 1-20 value of the unknown/unlearned Position is going to make a difference too. It takes a minimum of 15 to show as a Position ingame, and so if you're learning a new Position and start well below 15 you're unlikely to have success learning a new Position

[StealthB2X]

You can edit the Unused practice spot in Practice. "New Position" is under "tactics (bottom left hand side). I changed Duchene to a RW and he has been on fire playing with Mackinon on the first line. My scout call them the poor man's Stamkos and Giroud . We won the Stanley cup in the first season.

How do you do this?

[philou21]

You go in the practice section and when you click on a practice schedule, for example fitness, you have the option at the bottom to train to a new position.

[StealthB2X]

I just have; Resting, General, Fitness, skating, shooting, Offensive and Defensive skill, Tactics, goalies, and 'Unused'

[philou21]

Yeah that's the schedules. You can see the schedule one by one and when you're in there, that's where you see the option to train the player to a new position. The schedules are in a drop down menu at the top right of the screen.

[philou21]

I'm finally at my computer so maybe with those screenshots it will be more clear for you.

The first image is what I told you when to look at the top right for the "schedule" drop down menu. There it shows how many players there is in this or that schedule. As you can see I've got 31 players in the general schedule and 5 in the goalie one. When I want to train a player to a new position you need to put him alone in a schedule like unused for example. If he's not alone it will impact all the other players.


Now when you click on a training this screen appears. At the bottom left you can see the "new position" showning and this is where you can select the position you desire for the player. In order for a player to learn a certain position, you also need to make him play at the same position during his training. If you don't do that it's not going to work. Also, if a player isn't versatile and doesn't wish/like the new training he will be unhappy and you'll have a message saying that the player is unhappy with his current training. So that means you cannot train the player no longer, it will not work.


Hope that helps!

[StealthB2X]

Oh, I figured it out, didn't know you could do this.

How long does it typically take to train a player at a new position approximately.

[philou21]

Can't really remember though but it takes a couple of weeks.

[Tasku]

And make sure, via the player's profile, that he's already at least somewhat familliar with the position. Also play him in the new position while he's training for it.

[marksbros6]

I have had a player become ‘accomplished’ in a role just by playing him there, but he must have been at least ‘competent’ there already. Took best part of a season to do it without additional training though?

[Shindigs]

I had Nikolaj Ehlers play left wing for 3 whole season in the NHL and gain 0 rating in LW despite starting as a RW/LW. In fact I've never recorded an increase in a player by playing him in a position for 1+ season, so I'm guessing an outlandishly high versatility rating is needed for some reason? Because learning how to play the other wing is so advanced only the most versatile of players can handle it-.-' Add in that a player's versatility/starting role values are pretty much just based on which positions whoever updated their eliteprospects profile have seen them play/the researcher has seen them play and the whole thing is just so arbitrary I personally just swap it. Besides playing someone in a position they aren't familiar with/isn't their main position has little to no impact on actual performance anyways. The biggest game impact it has is making sure they are treated as that position by the game for roster/team report sorting and records. Which further adds to the question of why it's so hard to teach a player a new role when it doesn't even achieve much of a difference on their performance? Seems like punishing the player for no real reason to me.

[nino33]

A change in Position connects greatly to the hidden Versatility Attribute...a low rating would likely result in little to no success learning a new position

Also the starting 1-20 value of the unknown/unlearned Position is going to make a difference too. It takes a minimum of 15 to show as a Position ingame, and so if you're learning a new Position and start well below 15 you're unlikely to have success learning a new Position

I had Nikolaj Ehlers play left wing for 3 whole season in the NHL and gain 0 rating in LW despite starting as a RW/LW. In fact I've never recorded an increase in a player by playing him in a position for 1+ season, so I'm guessing an outlandishly high versatility rating is needed for some reason? Because learning how to play the other wing is so advanced only the most versatile of players can handle it-.-

My initial comments were really regarding learning a new position (maybe I didn't word things well), not one they already know pretty well (using the latest TBL Roster ratings, Ehlers has a 17 rating in LW already); I'm honestly not sure if EHM was ever designed to have a player move from 17 in a secondary position to a rating of 18 or 19 (is there a step between Accomplished and Natural?)

AFAIK EHM was never designed to have a player actually change a primary (20 rated) Position; has anyone ever had it happen? Maybe it does, I don't know, but I don't recall hearing of it happening before...


FYI - Looking at Ehlers in the current TBL Rosters his Versatility is rated a 12....there's only seven NHLers with a Versatility rating higher than 15, and thirty higher than 14 (and eighty players rated higher than 13).....I'm not really sure if these numbers are high or low or about right; again, I'm not sure how things work in regards to learning/getting better at a Position you already know (does Versatility even apply in such cases?)

[BKarchitect]

It would be neat if archi could install some sort of “auto” button for versatility in the Editor like there is for strength.

In other words, some formula based on the number of position points a player has that turns into a 1-20 number.

If a forward has LW:18, C:20, RW:19 - it would auto generate a high versatility. If another forward was LW:20, C:9, RW:12 that would create a lower versatility.

In general defenders would have lower versatility since there is only LD and RD but if a player is accomplished at both defense and forward positions, then they would automatically get a very high versatility.

If you wanted to get fancy, you could even incorporate defensive and offensive role ratings since the ability to excel on both ends of the ice increases your versatility but if we are strictly talking about a players ability to play multiple positions, simply linking the versatility attribute to total position points seems like the simplest way to ensure a guy who is accomplished at all three forward spots is also highly versatile for that attribute.

Edit: reading Shindigs and Ninos posts - I’m not sure this suggestion really solves anything but it still makes some sense.

[Shindigs]

Honestly though the big issue isn't gaining more points BKarchitect, as the peformance of a player with 16 in a role and 20 is essentially impossible to spot. If it's there it's small enough that year to year and game to game variance in player performance hides it well enough that you'd need a very big sample size within a controlled testing environment to be able to properly measure it; Which in practice means it doesn't matter if a player ever gets more than accomplished at his current position. The issue to me , as previously stated, is that the game doesn't treat someone playing RW as a RW if his position values aren't 20 in RW and less in the others. In the only other two management games I've played (FM and FHM) you can get a player to max position value in another position. In FM it's generally incredibly slow and in FHM it's comically fast. I just wish EHM would settle in somewhere between the two. But currently if you're bothered by a player not picking up a new position and you're only playing for your own enjoyment, then sadly the savegame editor is the best option to "fix" that issue; Since doing so has no real impact on performance it's not like it's cheating either. But obviuosly that option isn't there when doing an official challenge save or playing in online leagues. There you kinda just have to deal with the game being really dumb about figuring out where a player has actually played.

If it doesn't bother you though, then you can just play your players out of position to your heart's content and rest easy that it won't affect their performance too much. I'm about to start a challenge save where I'm only allowed to draft forwards to the NHL; I have a theory that two-way forwards may actually make the best defencemen in the game and I intend to find out in this save. In doing that save I'll also get to see how much of an impact playing a forward as a defenceman will have on his performance, as that is playing as far away from your favored position as you possibly can; Unless you'd put a forward in goal that is, but "sadly" that isn't possible in EHM.

[Primis]

If it doesn't bother you though, then you can just play your players out of position to your heart's content and rest easy that it won't affect their performance too much.

This is honestly what I do. Over time I haven't seen that playing say a C on the wing matters at all, even if he's not "supposed" to be able to. Other tactics, chemistry, etc all are far more important and trump it. A good forward seems to be a good forward wherever he plays.

I very often end up with just a bunch of C's in my system and just play the ones at wing that I want there and it works out fine.

I'll be very, VERY curious to see what happens with your two-way forwards at defense. I know in the freeware there was a quirk where you could swap a d-man into a forward slot and a forward into the d-man slot. Years ago I had a game where I had Andy Delmore on defense and Steve Rucchin at forward and I swapped them. Delmore scored like 25 goals and Rucchin became my top defenseman. It was abusable, but mostly it was useful when you were doing an expansion team or something like that. If that works in EHM now, that would be horribly abusable, and I absolutely will try it for fun.

(as a complete aside, there used to be Goalies in the freeware's rosters that had alternate positions, usually at Forward. THAT was always fun because you could claim a 71 OA goalie off waivers/in the waiverdraft and then voila you had a 71 OA Forward -- which were *far* more valuable).

[marksbros6]

If a guy is playing outside his ‘real-life’ position you could mention it on the roster-feedback threads?

Looking just at the UK there are plenty of guys who come over here and play in a different position.

On the original database one of my fave Milton Keynes players Blaz Emersic was a ‘natural’ D-man, but to my knowledge never played there when he moved to the UK; was a winger for Slough and played Centre for MKL. By my reasoning he should be ‘natural’ at centre as that’s where he plays.

[BKarchitect]

It's not that I have an issue with positions so much when I'm in control of a club as a GM (although my natural OCD has a bit of a freakout when I go to my depth charts and see things really unbalanced). It's more an issue about how the computer GM's/simulation seem to treat primary positions.

To wit...

In NHL36, Henrik Borgstrom is a top, top prospect who is nearly NHL ready and has an ideal scoring line skillset. Total skill guy, high potential PA (165), 18 or 19 for offensive role. He's naturally listed at a center but may very well end up on the wing in Florida (because his skillset is ideal for a winger and Florida has two young stud centers in Barkov and Trocheck already signed long-term) so I gave him a 20 at center and 19 at left wing.

So in most of the sims (I do not play as Florida) - I had been noticing him topping out almost consistently as a 20-40 point depth center. Which - you can't guarantee anything with prospect development - so that's ok but when i looked into his usage by the CPU GM/coach, he was mostly played as a 3rd/4th line center behind Barkov and Trocheck. And again, you might say "well - that's ok because they are going to play their better two centers on the top lines". But the CPU seemed to play lesser wingers in the top 6 on the left wing consistently despite Borgstrom's 19 rating and high skill at that role. Not always mind you - to give the simulation some credit, it does vary lines from game to game at times and did put Borgstrom on the wing at times - but the overall affect was he was more often than not a depth center as long as Florida still had Barkov and Trochek and played lesser players higher up on the wing.

So as a test, I swapped his position ratings in my database to 20 at left wing and 19 at center and ran a few more sims and now Borgstrom almost always ends up as a 65-75 point flashy top line left wing in Florida's tactics. With the exact same abilities and ratings to start with. He's just treated differently by the simulation - that 1 point of positional difference that doesn't bother us as human GM's can make quite a difference on CPU-run teams.

I realize my complaint is really about the EHM simulation engine itself which is what it is and can't be as sophisticated as real life. But that's the issue I have with positions - not *my* ability to look past confined roles, but the game's ability to do so and how that affects players development.

So that ability to use the Editor and move a point here or there in a saved game - it's actually really more useful when it comes to the other teams, not my team - it let's you create a more refined and IMO appropriate usage of rosters by the computer.

[gogeta110]

are you all talking about using the "EHM Editor" to change position in the save files? I can't get that one to work without corrupting the save game. EHM assistant was amazing when it worked

[Shindigs]

are you all talking about using the "EHM Editor" to change position in the save files? I can't get that one to work without corrupting the save game. EHM assistant was amazing when it worked

Do you make sure to drop the "other" position down from 20 to 19 or lower? Because if you don't EHM tends to blow up. Sometimes it blows up regardless, which is why the Editor tells you to always backup files before changing anything.

As for the Florida example above, the AI is just dumb as a brick and absolutely horrible at setting up lines that make sense. It cares way too much about reputation over a players actual skill. Riz has claimed it's supposed to be the opposite on another forum, but that's not what you see in pracice. In practice the AI will play old players who amassed a lot of reputation above young prospects with more talent but less experience, which then leads to the old guys continuing to get even more reputation while the prospects are stuck in depth roles scoring depth points and getting depth reputation. Fast forward a decade and you have Top 6 NHL forward prospects in the 2nd tier of Germany while NHL veterans with 5 acceleration and speed play top line minutes at age 40 in the NHL ahead of them. The AI won't consider the future when making decisions in any aspect of the game. It is in constant win now mode no matter how trash it is, with rare exceptions where it goes into rebuilds. But when it comes to AI coaches making roster decisions it's just complete nonsense as it creates this Catch 22 of players never being able to attain the reputation to dethrone the current NHL stars until they all retire. I've been adding WHL prospects to my own version of the db and ran multiple simmed saves up to 2030 and generally you get maybe 1-5 players who start outside the NHL in the top 50 scorers by that time. The current NHLers/already drafted players are the only ones given chances due to their reputation advantage at game start that can't be overcome until they inevitably get force retired at age 40/41.

Sometimes you luck out and the AI just doesn't have any current high rep player in say RW and then they draft a good RW. That player will get the shot at top 6 minutes (because the AI has no alternative) which will lead to that player gaining the needed rep and breaking the Catch 22. But that's more of an exception than the rule. Some way of having the AI considering future potential of players must be added for their way of dealing with players to ever come close to realistic. Something as simple as the AI being allowed to cheat and see the exact PA of their own players would probably kill two birds with one stone as it would lower the AIs willingness to trade away their future for nothing, while also making it more likely to give youngsters a shot at Top 6 minutes. If there was an option to let the AI do that, I'd tick it and never look back.

[moss5563]

So i have been training players at new positions mostly forwards learning left wing. but they learn it and them when i pujt them back to their natural positon they end up forgetting the position as in it goes down from accomplished to competent. why is this happening???

[philou21]

This never happened to me before.