Steve

With an assist by Elite who beat Wolf Pack, knocking them out of the 8th and final spot.  Elite is also back in the GHL playoffs for the first time in three seasons after barely surviving relegation last season!!!  Hope I can follow up on your stellar work against the Vandals, my first round opponent and always tough playoff team!?!

The Breakouts are for the first time in franchise history officially in the GHL playoffs! After my last post the team decided to drop the ball big time in the next 3 games losing all of them in regulation. Last game of the season and we really needed a W, against the tough Vandals. Great effort from my top 4 defenders and we managed to beat the 3rd place Vandals 7-4.
 
Management had set the goal for the season to stay in the GHL, trading away all of the draft picks for this years draft and it really seems to have paid off. Exceeding all expectations we're fighting for the ultimate price. Now the real struggle begins though as we have to face the league leading Mines Pegasus, team we only managed to beat once during regular season. Let's see what the young group is made of and best of luck to all teams in the playoffs - in every level of the world!

Don't worry, the other 5 teams battling with you for that last playoff spot will all be rooting against you!  Go Elite!  haha.

So suddenly when the season seemed to be lost and my team dropping all the way to 14th place after a 5 game losing streak we have taken a turn and gone 6-1 during the last 7 games. And the last three games have all been shutouts with both goalies taking turns in the net, goal difference being 15-0. Seems like my guys really want to make the playoffs first season back to GHL. Hope we can keep this trend going when facing Protons next game!

Oh my.... yes please!  I would love to have all the game stats downloadable to be honest
 
Would save me a whole lot of spread sheeting time

I agree with me colome. There was an update on more chance for oldies to stop but only 3 guys did that at the end of the season.
 
Now we have a teams with 40 year olds not regressing at all.
 
 
Glad the draft is getting weaker it was just absurd.
Goalie prospects at 97 or more kills realisme

I changed most of the tactics when I took over the team, and here are the number of games it took for tactic familiary bars to rise.
 
From starting red to minimum orange: 11 games
From minimun orange to minimum blue: 7 more games, total of 18 games
From minumum blue to minimum green: 6 more games, total of 24 games
From minimum green to full green: 5 more games, total 29 games.
 
There might or might not be degrees to full green. When I originally changed tactics, it took several matches for the previous full green bars to visibly drop. If I'd switch now after just receiving full green bar, I have a hunch it might drop right away. I'm not gonna test it though.

This totally worked btw.  Started 2-0-2-6 at home this season.  I am now 11-0-2-7.  9-1 at home in my last 10 games.  Deferiet Garden is once again a feared arena for all opponents to play in.  A combination of the uniform change and the $1 whiskey shots (limit of 8 per period) keeps the fans lubed up and loud.

Picked at this for a couple of seasons but never made a post. I find it a little unnecessary that if you win the first two games of a playoff series you still need to play a third. You're players aren't allowed to rest and it runs the risk of having stars injured in a meaningless game. 
 
Anyone else not a fan of this or am I just nitpicking ?

Well one thing I've noticed with my team (high number of nervous/anxious players) is that we've been pretty inconsistent. At one point this year I think we were alternating 5-0 wins with 5-1 losses. Not sure if there are other confounding factors but we also tend to go on extended hot/cold streaks for long stretches of the season - it just so happened that the playoffs fit into one of our extended hot streaks for the last two seasons. 

I too have noticed this and was wondering if I was trying to fix something for no reason and focus on something else. Like I said above, comparing only my players against each other, some of my best consistent performers (all relative) are "nervous".

@ncik: I'm not a believer of the nervous traits or traits in general. I think they have too less of an impact. I would want to see that changed because I believe traits are equally important than skills. Look at it in real life, if you have all the skill in the world but if the mentality is bad, it will have consequences. Where traits now in GPHM don't have that impact.
 
In Biscuit for example, the last 2 winners of the cup was the same team. They won with 12-13 anxious/nervous players, with 7-8 nervous players. So much for the big game trait.

Are your nervous players playing poorly?  Worse than your Determined/Stable players? 
 
I have a few Nervous/Anxious players, but they perform just as well, if not better, than my other players.  I've always thought the Big Games trait was more of an overall team factor (i.e. Winner Instinct).  Or maybe if you have enough Heroic/Determined/Stable players it will offset the Nervous players... and if you have too many Nervous players, like you said, then players actually start playing that way?  I'm just grasping at this point.

Man... even when we play well we just can't win at home.
 

I think it would be cool to have some additional jersey options to give teams a larger sense of identity - and to expand from 2 to 3 color combinations.  I noticed at the jersey select screen there is a drop down for Jersey Type, but there is currently only 1 option, which leads me to believe there was initial intent for multiple options.
 
I was looking at all the NHL jersey styles and came up with the three styles below.
 
1. Sleeve stripes + bottom trim+ shoulders (BOS, EDM, STL)
 
2. Sleeve stripes + bottom trim + middle stripe (MTL, MIN, FLA)
 
3. Sleeve stripes + bottom trim (CHI, DAL, VAN)
 
You could mimic other teams jerseys such as Detroit/Toronto by selecting option 3 and just choosing 2 colors.  The current design could still remain for nostalgic purposes and purists.
 

 
Thoughts?

Honestly, if my teams down 1 with a couple minutes left, Im trying to go for the win and put on my best player to get me that goal. 

Would it be possible to add a shootout lineup option into the mix?

So, I'm going to keep track of the two goalies that I mentioned earlier and we're going to see how they develop and track progress until the draft, giving an update on day 20, 40, and 60. Then we can see exactly who decides to take which player and follow their progress from there. This should be interesting as the higher ranked, Higher rating goalie, Lanza, has statistics that are far less impressive than the 2nd ranked goalie, Vignaux.
 
Name / SOY OVR (+ Progress) / Games Played / GAA / SP / Shutouts
 
MATCH 1:
Lanza / 89 (+0) / 12 / 3.38 / .908 / 1
Vignaux / 84 (+0) / 11 / 1.27 / .952 / 4

"As for the focus, I have heard conflicting opinions on this as well, all from successful managers. So I guess it's more a matter of preference. Although I don't know if this information was ever available as part of the "Hints" section that was removed long before I joined."
 
I agree, that I've heard the same as well. I really think a lot of this boils down to individual preferences etc. For instance, I tend to run a Two Way, PowerForward, and Playmaker on my Two Way lines. I've found that on occasion an entire line could be effected by one of these players not gelling with the others. Likewise, I've found that the one that is performing the worst, when changed, makes the entire team more cohesive. It's more complex than I give it credit for.
 
As for your comments on how long tactic changes take to get to a full bar, I may agree with a 20-25 game stretch a bit more as well. I am curious as to whether or not the average age of your team (experience) defines how quickly that bar changes.

So last season I tried an experiment and I barely avoided being relegated.  I tried new tactics.  40 games is about right from low red to full bar.  Also, using a ruler on my monitor and measuring progress up and down, I confirm that dropping happens faster than increasing, but not always.  There was a period when I switched when my old tactic barely dropped and the new one barely increased.  After about 5-8 games, they started trending in the anticipated direction.  I want to switch my tactic, but after a couple of seasons of horrible results with playing with it, I'm too scared to try again unless I am already relegated and rebuilding.
 
As for the Team Focus, I'm not sure what to do with those.  I've heard some managers say NEVER mess with them, but I like the theory that you can mix them up based on your opponent.  I'm focusing on trying to understand this more this season since I've decided to not try to change my offense or defense tactics again after last season.  
 
But I think all of this is slightly more complicated.  There isn't a magic formula, since your opponent changes every night, but having your offense/defense tactics, your team focus, and line settings be consistent and make the most of your players' skills is difficult.  For example, having Stay At Home Defensive Line and Checking Lines play Very Offensive just doesn't make sense.  So there has to be some sort of alignment.  What that is will probably change from team to team and the effectiveness against each team will also vary based on everything we all just said.  
 
So, I guess it depends on your manager strategy.  Do you start with a offense/defense plan and build a team around that or vice versa?  No right answer, but I think until you decide on one or the other, you'll be doing a lot of soul searching, haha.  

Changing tactics generally take around 40 games to get to 100%. I feel that there are two ways to approach tactics. You either build a team geared towards a particular tactic because you like that style of play or you've looked at what the most used tactic of your league is and you adopt a tactic that can play at an advantage over that. 
 
Personally I prefer to utilise my teams strengths and play to that and when I am looking to bring in new players I am only looking for additions that will complement my team and the style of play. 

Bumping this old thread.  Was it ever known how much of an impact tactic familiarity had on game play... or any other impacts?
 
From what I've seen, if someone wants to change tactics, it will take almost an entire season to get to 90-100%.  I'm wondering if that would pretty much destroy someone's entire season - or if the impact is relatively minor (assuming most of the players actually fit the new tactic).
 
Something else to think about (not sure if anyone has any input on this?).  Random example: if you find that your defenders are more suited for SPREAD defense, but your current tactic is TRAP.  Is it better to:
A.) Play Spread at 20-30%
B.) Play Trap at 90-100%

Absolutely yes choose one and stick with it. Remember that the tactics you are switching back and forth on are drastically different play styles that you are asking your team to play. If you watch the NHL you will hear every once in a while people mention a teams identity or lack thereof. This is exactly what they are talking about.
 
It is deliberately impossible to get two different tactics to 100% because professional teams don't do it unless something is very wrong. You will never see LA go from their physical defensive game to an offensive speed game. You won't ever see Pittsburgh do the opposite.

Welcome to the slowest, but coolest game world!  haha.  
 
Which team did you take over (old name)?

Yeah, I thought that was kind of cool as well.  Also what a change from S11.  Last season the Italians would have been an average BHL team.  This season, a dominant BHL team and competitive SHL team - with the addition of 18 year old C Marco Ilan 88 OVR and 18 year old F Federico Poli 83 OVR.  If Italy can keep producing young talent at that rate, another 15-20 more years and we will be challenging the Canadians and Americans for world champion.