The Official TBL Practice Thread

[TurboJ]

Could anyone please inform me if they know the answer to the re-training question above. Thank you.

[Saapas]

In my experience players not willing to learn a new position will become unhappy soon after the re-training has begun. I haven't bothered with re-training but instead I sometimes just play players on positions they are not comfortable on as emergency option in case of injuries and such.

[TurboJ]

Yeah, that's why I don't want to just test this out myself (not want to lose McDavid) and was hoping if someone actucally knew if you can retrain anything that's not already 'competent', OR, if you can retrain a 100% peaked player.

Thanks.

[Saapas]

I also remember that even through training players can't achieve "Natural" in new positions

[Rough Neck]

Could anyone please inform me if they know the answer to the re-training question above. Thank you.

While my information is brief I found that trainig them in a position and having them play it at the same time speeds the process. If there is a N/A then they cannot train that and if they complain about practice I have found that their adaptability is probably low and it won't work too well to keep them there.

[philou21]

IIRC that's correct Rough Neck. The few times I trained a player to a new position, I made him play that position at the same time.

[sappyporpoise77]

Hi! Social distancing has given me a fair amount of spare time so I started up EHM again. I've always struggled with practices, my players don't seem to improve. I'm trying out the schedules from Shindigs a few pages back (II Nor/IM Nor) and it seems to be working for me!

However my players morale is decreasing, despite a winning record. I read somewhere that morale is connected to players having the same practice schedule all the time, and in my experience they do appear to be connected. Assuming they are related does anyone know how often you should change the practice schedule? I used to change it every 2 weeks, and while I never had any players below 'ok' morale I rarely had any attribute increase. Do I just need to accept sacrificing morale to properly train players?

[TurboJ]

how often you should change the practice schedule?

One thing worth considering is that if you play NHL with 82 games per season plus long playoffs, players get a lot of exercise from just playing the game (compared to some leagues where there might only be 30 games per per season.).

When players only have a short time for recovery between games, intensive practice becomes a bit of a risk. I used to have many players on a schedule with 3 or 4 areas of training on intensive. But I found during my last ~1500 hours of gameplay that through an NHL season players seem to have more injuries with a very heavy training regime because they more often start games with less than 100% health. These days I only use heavy training in the off-season. Player development doesn't seem to differ at all from the time when I used more intensive training on the season as well.

Here's what I've been doing lately:

On the last rounds of playoffs I set my key players to 'rest' to maximize recovery rate and minimize injury risk. Every player gets a ~10 day rest after the whole season is over. Summer is intensive training but within reason. Very young prospects with a lot of room for development I will even have on full intensive through the summer. All team is set to 'rest' during the training camp. The camp is tough enough as it is. Right after the camp I go 'early season mode' with personalized regimes. Focus the main area players need to develop/keep up with a maximum of two areas on intensive, all the rest on medium. Players who have peaked typically only have one area on intensive. Half-way through the season most players will go 'full medium'. I seem to find the player performance on the later half of the season is possibly better if their training is not too hard. And injury risk is lower if players aren't as tired. Players who only play very few minutes get more intensive training so they don't regress. Results with all of this are very good.

Only the game developers know exactly how the practice work and there are many theories. But what I've found through the years indicates that a realistic approach can work.

What about morale? I don't really touch anyone's training schedule based on their morale. Not unless they are 'very low' for many weeks on end. I find that ice time, player performance and team success affect the morale much more than their training. I find no reason to keep changing the training regimes for morale purposes. Increasing/decreasing ice time is the most effective remedy IMO. Centers are difficult to keep happy because how difficult that playing position is in EHM. So I often switch a low-morale center to play on the wing for a while and it usually works.

Older players who are already on the decline or are soon going to be, it does look to help a little to keep them on intensive skating + conditioning with the rest on medium.

Much more than training it seems that a fitting role and ice time develop players the fastest. As an example, a talented NHL prospect may not show any real development if I have him three summers on intensive training with the NHL club. He may not develop much at all playing AHL either. But as soon as you start giving the player a good amount of ice time in the NHL (1st, 2nd line and PP), the development will often skyrocket.

Morale? If your team is doing well and the players are playing a role fitting their ability, morale should not be a problem. A bad individual morale problem may be helped a little by changing the training. But I don't normally do that as changing their ice time and playing position seems to be much more effective.

[sappyporpoise77]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm about to start my 3rd season in the OHL and I think I'll give your suggestion a try. I'm definitely an off and on again EHM player, taking years off at a time, but I've been playing it for over a decade. Developing players is the bane of my Manager experience, I've just never been able to have success.

I'm comfortable micro-managing the schedule and have generally set my players to have at least 3 areas set at intensive, modifying it depending on the player. I've tried keeping the schedule static, changing it every 2 weeks and even changing it every week - but my players are essentially the same at the end of the season as at the beginning. I'll have a couple players with the odd 1pt increase here and there, but the majority don't change (I don't expect to have every player become a star - but it's frustrating when I consistently have no player growth!).

In any case, perhaps I've been going about it the wrong way and should tone down the practice schedule during the season like you suggest. When you're in "early season mode" do you change which areas you have set as intensive, or keep them the same?

[TurboJ]

Thank you for your comment too!

my 3rd season in the OHL

Playing the junior leagues can add to the difficulty of it. Players between the age 16 and 18 just might not show much growth if they're not top end talent. And if they are, the level of opposition and skill of the coaches on that level can result in their growth being less than expected during those years even if they are. Approaching the age of 20 I believe the issue is emphasized. If the player in question is a future NHLer then they will often reach a plateau around the age 18-19. At that point they would need higher level of competition to continue to develop effectively. And then when you compare your own results to those of the AI teams, the problem isn't as prevalent for them - the AI get bonuses for development to make up for their limitations.

Developing players is the bane of my Manager experience, I've just never been able to have success.

I think the most difficult part is there are so many variables involved and many of them are unknown variables. Some variables about it even have random elements let alone the combined effects of all these variables. In the end I would assume the biggest variable is the actual growth potential any given player has. I have seen cases where a supposedly very talented prospect turned out to have been at his peak ability already at 18 years of age. And some might show significant growth again only after they get a chance to play in a high level professional league. I find that with most players the one factor that has the biggest effect on whether they grow according to their potential is not practice or coaching, but the level of the games they play and the ice time they get.

it's frustrating when I consistently have no player growth!

I know the feeling. Some will always end up being 'busts' but it's frustrating once some of those players suddenly bloom right after they've left your team. One thing about the whole practice thing though, with very young players (such as you will have in the OHL) is that many of them will still have quite low stamina. If they also don't have high natural fitness then their overall performance will suffer just because they aren't typically able to play a full hockey game at their level. Maybe it would make sense to limit the hard physical training for such players during the season. Playing hockey seems to the best method for player development after all. And it seems the players develop better if they have success in their games.

When you're in "early season mode" do you change which areas you have set as intensive, or keep them the same?

I don't, but I might switch some players to more intensive training for a while if their ice time had been reduced. However, my experience is based on NHL so it's possible what I do might not work equally well on other levels. One thing I have noticed though. While it's difficult to know what exactly is causing the growth spurts some players have, I do often see players take small hits to their ability if they have been on a highly intensive training program for a long time during the regular season. Others have noticed the same and reported it on this forum. If a top six NHL forward at his peak can drop his attributes due to too hard training, then it's more than likely the effect can exist on a junior team too where the players will, on average, have lower natural fitness in addition to lower stamina and lower overall ability.

...

All that being said, I'd like to add one more thing. Some players seem to regress also if their training isn't challenging enough. Not very rare is a case when my bottom three forwards who play an average of 8-9 minutes per game will decline a little during the season and in their case it's the lack of work rather than too much of it causing that. Me along with many others have suggested that such players may benefit from more intensive training to make up for the fact they don't get enough ice time. I don't know if it really works but it seems to. Oh, and BTW. If a player has a long term injury, they may take quite a noticeable hit to their attributes as a result. What I've done with these players is to have them on more intensive regime for a couple of months when they get back to playing. I figure more intensive training should help get them back to where they were and maybe it does. But I can't say for sure.

[BulldogsFan]

anyone know what a good practice % in the right hand side in the practice schedule is usually i go 40% general 30 PP 30 PK but not sure

[Knoeppel]

I allways go with 50/25/25

I have read somewhere that changing the pp/bp percentage may alter how good you do in these areas.
But my PP always suck, nomatter what i do, so i don´t change the practice percentage.

[Bizarre Reverend]

I'm kinda happy I'm not the only one who hasn't figuered this out yet.
I played a lot of seasons since I think 2018, in different leagues (NHL/AHL/OHL/NL). I usualy do a lot of intense training during the offseason. My defenders and Centers are most of the time in my Skill Setting (Intense, Intense, Medium, Light, Intense, Intense, Light) and this worked pretty well at the NHL and AHL level, not so much in Switzerland and the OHL. In the regular season, I usually have all the players on Generall (Medium everywhere), but I think the theories about having more intense training for your fourth liners are intressting and I will try it.
For PK/PP I have it at 60/20/20 at the NHL and 70/15/15 in development league. Once the playoffs are here, I change it to 50/25/25.