EHM The Blue Line

Yeah, I was just curious, how do you guys watch the games? Do you sit tight by every match and watch your players on the ice, see how the tactics work, how individual players perform with highlights at the extended or full game mode, or do you just click "Start game" and wait for the digital watch to go thru all three periods and see who's the winner?

I personally watch all games in extended highlights mode. It gives a good idea of how my team is playing and I can see individual players performing on the ice. Plus, in important games, it's far more exciting that way...

How abouts you?


mod note: edited title so this Finnish admin spelled highlights correctly ... would not want him to be embarrassed. batdad

I'm too impatient. I set my lines and tactics and then sit back and watch just the key highlights. I have the clock and speed both set to high. So the periods go by pretty quickly. If I see we're starting to get in trouble, I'll pause the game and go to the tactics. I'll usually tweak my lines, seeing who is doing well and who isn't, moving the good ones up to better lines. Then I might switch from normal line usage to Just Three or Overload to help keep the better players on the ice, giving us a better chance to comeback and score.

I do a combination of extended, key, and none. None when I am getting blown out and cannot figure out how to stop it from happening.

I play alot with my lines during games, and tactics...personal, team and line. I never ease back on the guys. If Heatley is having a bad game..down at least one line he goes. I do not care who you are..you perform..or sit. Constantly playing with them. Rarely are my lines the same at the beginning of the game as they are at the end.

As for lines and amount of play, rarely if ever do I go over normal. Occasionally when I need a goal, or want to put a dagger in. But in overload, I never match. In normal I do at home, and go with what the other team wants on the road, and do not match. IN equal...always matching. My matchups vary from game to game too.

I knwo this is a management game, but I think the head coaches in it suck. I am better than each and every one of them. So why would I not do it?

My biggest problem is having patience. It shows mainly in my mod style, but also in the way I screw up my power play all the time. IF I am 0-2 I am changing things many times. Not good I know.

I've tried my FM method of watching every game in extended highlights, at normal speeds, but I can't do it. - The match engine is lacking too much polish to keep my interest for very long. Plus, I always leave my coach to do all the coaching, so it sometimes gets boring just watching 'from the GM suite'.

Though, with all this talk of watching games, I may try it out again... whenever I get hired in my new career game.

I'd like to say I manage my games real time and change my lines when my team is struggling. However, that would be lying, and lies make Jesus cry, so I am told. Honestly, I set my games to as fast as possible and just let the game decide. If my team is not meant to win, so be it.

I play without highlights, time and action speed set to medium/normal. Leaves me enough time to react if necessary, I rarely changed tactics during games anyway. Otherwise a season would take just too long.
However I do play with extended highlights in FM, less games per season though.

I always have extended highlights, as i like to see what happens by myself. This way i have a better feeling about the team and can adjust things if i feel the need. I don't hesitate to change lines and tactics during the game, but try to keep things as they are when the team is playing well, no matter the score. Making changes when everything runs okay would hurt more than help, so...

you are all like Lou Lamoriello...
I let my coach coaching.. im not watching the game anymore.. i simulate.. im only making lines between the games and setting practice.

jackknife77 wrote:you are all like Lou Lamoriello...
I let my coach coaching.. im not watching the game anymore.. i simulate.. im only making lines between the games and setting practice.

Sorta same here, I set the lines, tactics, and practice myself. Sometimes (if its an important game) I will view it but not coach it myself.

I tend to set everything to fast and let the timer just fly like crazy. Now, if I see that I am starting to lose patience in the game with being behind by 3 or something like that by the 2nd period. Then I will go in and make some changes to the team, but overall, that doesn't happen to me too often.

mod note: edited title so this Finnish admin spelled highlights correctly ... would not want him to be embarrassed. batdad

Heh... just testing if the mods are up to their job...

And on topic: I find, once you learn the game engine's little faults and learn to tell the difference between mishaps in AI, that affect both sides and are unrelated to the players skills, and those made by the player, you can see quite a lot on how your team, your tactics and your individual players are performing on the ice by watching the highlights. Quite often this is the case even when the ratings don't say anything better than "6" or "7" for the performance made by that particular player. You might see that he's skating faster than usual, or he might be shooting more, and that'll be the hint for you to trust him with more responsibility in the team.

There've also been numerous times that I've been able to determine what kind of tactics would work best for my team by watching the games. For example once I thought I had a pretty darn good team with Espoo Blues in SM-Liiga, so I figured I should use "creative" passing to confuse my opponents, but instead as I watched the game, it seemed like that style was actually confusing my own players more than the opponent. They were sirkling around the ice, passing and passing again, looking all smooth and stuff, atleast until they ran straight into the opponent giving them a breakaway and goal... Nowadays I prefer "simple" or "normal" passing...

I prefer only watching the Performance Report , like Youpii i think i am GM not Coach , if i am going to watch Those games The Season Will never take and End , i prefer play severals Seasons and make lots of Draft , developing Thousands of player than try learn Skatink Too Sheldon Souray .