narrogh

Hi, today i want to discuss the player ratings in gameplanhockey. Here is the ratings view of my roster. 
 
A rating is numbered from 1 to 99 and as you can see from the screenshot they are highlighted with colors that we already know. Green is best, Blue is good, Orange is mediocre and Red is bad. There are 9 different player ratings for skaters and 7 for goalies: Player ratings (skaters) 
1. Skating
"Speed and acceleration but also the agility of the player."2. Passing"The players ability to find a teammate and deliver a pass without the puck being intercepted by the opponent."3. Puck Handling"This rating will tell how good the player is to keep control of the puck, deke, deflect shots and protect the puck."4. Shooting"A combination of shooting power and accuracy. It´s not the only rating used to score goals but it sure is one of the most important."5. Defence"The players ability to read the opponent, backcheck and being in the right place when the opponent is trying to score."6. Physical"The players ability to use the most of his body, deliver hits, getting the upperhand in the crease and avoiding to be run over by the opponent."7. Spirit"The players fighting spirit and determination. The rating tells you how hard the player backchecks, follows through and blocks shots."8. Endurance"Players with high value of endurance can take more ice-time without being fatigued and they also recovers faster."9. Faceoffs"A rating most used by centers but is important to every player stepping up to the face-off spot." Player ratings (goalies)1. Reflexes"The goalie reflexes and the ability to react to hard and accurate shots"2. Positioning"The ability to stand in the right place before the shot or scoring opportunity is created"3. Puck Control"The ability to control the puck at heavy traffic or prevent dangerous rebounds on hard shots."4. Athletic"An agile goalie moves quickly from side to side and can make those impossible saves even if lying flat on the ice."5. Puck Handling"How well the goalie can take part of game play, set up the first pass or poke check the puck away from the opponent."6. Spirit"The goalies fighting spirit, determination and ability to not be disturbed by heavy traffic in front of the net."7. Endurance"Goalies with high value of endurance can play more games in a row without being fatigued and they also recovers faster."   Looking at my roster i see that: - I have 4 centers with around 83-85 in faceoffs skill. Not bad, but no real specialist.- My skaters seem to excel in spirit, apart from Ezekiel Sheehan who already was nominated for release.- Best skater is winger Juan David Martin (89), but he combines it with low endurance (59).- Best passer is defender Anton Akulov (86), who also has the best rating in defense (89). On the downside, he has the lowest Puck Handling (40), but that rating seem only to be important for offensive defenders, so a very good defender.- Center Marlon Heintz is the best puck handler and shooter (both 77). It's unfortunate that he has only 57 endurance. He also doesn't belong to the group of best faceoff-takers.- Most physical player is defender Youri Bouffard (94)- Winger Chance Shumaker has the best spirit (99). To the max! He also has the most endurance (93) and has great skating (85). Combine that with a potential of Natural Talent and we are perhaps looking at the best player in the team.- Looks like Matias Gorman is going to be the starter goalie, thanks to his 81 endurance. Nicola Saint Arnault will serve as backup.- Team is lacking a real offensive defender. Ioan Floyd is listed as an OFD, but his shooting isn't really impressive (67). This is definately an area i will try to strengthen. That's it for today. A quick glance at the player ratings. Next up will be contracts.  

Hi all, team is still going great. They already won 3 games under my belt. Still haven't made any big decision yet, but do i need to? Only thing i am changing at the moment is swapping the goalies if some of them isn't fully healthy.   
 
But as promised, let's talk about more about the roster views. Specifically let's dive into the profile view.
 

 
Every player has a preferred Role and some Characteristics. The latter is divided into 6 categories. Let's first talk about those categories. Here is what the hints tell about them (together with all the possible values)
 
Potential
"This will give you a hint how much talent the player has and how likely he is to develop his skills and become a future star."
 
[Natural Talent, Gifted, Capable, Untalented, Slow-witted]
 
Greed
"What is more important; Money or Team spirit? Some players go for the highest bidder while others prefer great teammates and long-term relationships."
 
[Loyalist, Team Player, Professional, Individualist, Mercenary]
 
Dirtyness/Temperament
"How does the player behave on ice? This will offcourse influence the number of penalties but also how well he adopts to your tactics."
 
[Gentle, Respectful, Tough, Agitator]
 
Leadership
"Some people are born leaders while others depend on others to show the way. This is a good place to start looking when choosing your captains."
 
[True Leader, Role Model, Respected, Modest, Anonymous]
 
Determination/Big Games
"Who will rise to the occasion and show fighting spirit when you need it most? It's no coincidence that some players score the game winner every other game."
 
[Heroic, Determined, Stable, Anxious, Nervous]
 
Ambition
"Believe it or not, some hockey players have a life outside the rink. This ambition value will tell you how much he is willing to sacrifice for his hockey career."
 
[Ambitious, Purposeful, Enthusiastic, Half-Hearted, Lazy]
 
 
The hints are pretty clear. Potential and Ambition looks the most important to me, aswell as Leadership for captains, but you will also need some players that rise to the occasion (Determination). Loyal players are important to keep the team together and make some salary room. Finally you should avoid many players that loses their temperament and don't stick to the game plan (Dirtyness).
 
Note that the characteristics values are fixed. They don't change during a player career.
 
 
Roles
 
Every player has a preferred role, but it's important to note that contrary to characteristics they are not fixed. They may change during development of the player and when the team is promoting/demoting to an other league. For instance, a Stay-At-Home defenseman in Bronze, could very much prefer a Two-Way  role in the Iron League, cause he is surrounded with worse players. A forward that is developing quickly can potentially turn from a Grinder to a Sniper or Playmaker.
 
Here are all the roles in the game:
 
Sniper, Playmaker, Powerforward, Two-way, Grinder, Enforcer, Stay-At-Home (defense only), Offensive (defense only) and Goalie.
 
There are no different goalie types as of today, but they could be added in the future.
 
Roles are important. If you play a player outside his preferred role, he will perform worse and lose confidence. For instance, a playmaker will not like a 4th line role.
 
 
Now, can i already make some early conclusions by looking solely at the player characteristics and general info? Yep, i now know:
 
Ezekiel Sheehan is one of the 8 centers in the team, he has the lowest overall rating 59, is only 18 years old, but has a slow-witted potential, so i doubt he will become a great player. He also is nervous during big games and could see some minutes on the penalty-box. This player will be resigned from the club first, no doubts.
Juan David Martin is the 5th overall player on forwards rating wise (70), but if you take his characteristics into account, he looks way better. He is a true leader and team player. Furthermore he is capable, respectful, stable and enthusiastic. Definately a player the team counts on.
Defender Ludovyck Beggs is also a very interesting player. 23 years old, but a natural talent and purposeful. Combine that with being a loyalist, role model, respectful and stable and we are looking at a real talent. It will be interesting to see how much he grows this season (65)
Center Marlon Heintz (72) is a sniper and has heroic determination. He could potentially score many game winners. I will keep an eye on him for sure.  
 
Okay that is it for today. I showed you the profile view and shared some early opinions about some players. Next part, i will be discussing the player skills.

Hi all, today i'm going to have a look at the current roster of my club.

3) Glance at the roster

Click on 'Team' and on the tab 'Roster'.

Here are the players currently at Rio Grande City Bandits. (I took 2 screenshots, since i couldn't get them all on 1)





The first thing that becomes immediately clear is the fact that there are 4 different positions in gameplanhockey, namely Centers, Forwards, Defenders and Goalies. Forwards are simply Wingers, maybe they use the term Forwards in Europe, i don't know.

On the Roster View you can switch to 4 different views: Info, Profile, Contract and Ratings. The one you are now looking at and which i will be focusing on today is the Info view. In short the 4 views can be described as follow:

Info: Shows basic information about the players. Profile: Shows players characteristics (leadership, greediness, potential, ambition, etc) Contract: Shows players contract details. Ratings: Shows players ratings in various skills. (skating, scoring, defense, puckhandling, etc) The most important information from the info view is the overall rating. This number presents the overall strength of the player, it generally gives a good indication, but don't solely look at this number, because it does say nothing about the individual skill ratings and player characteristics, which also play an important role on performances. I will be looking at them later.

Looking at my roster now, the disbalance strikes me. Previous manager obviously made a mess. There are a massive 8 centers under contract and only 9 forwards (only 2 of them being Righthanded). We have 8 defenders, which is fine, but also only 2 of them are right handed. In a perfect situation i would like to have:

"5 centers, 10 forwards, 8 defenders and 3 goalies. Hands equally divided."

So, it looks like i will need to do some business on the transfermarket soon

Looking more closely, i have been very blessed with the goalies. Matias Gorman has the best overall rating (76) and the backup goalie Nicola Saint-Arnault isn't far behind (75). Generally the team looks old, but that also means very experienced. Two factors that probably helped the team climbing to the top of the table.

Behind some players you will notice some icons, the C stands for Captain, the A for Assistant Captain, the SCR stands for Scratched. The star mean star-player. Note that the star players are not always the best players rating-wise, but i believe performance is also factored in.

Next to overall rating, two other important attributes from the info view are Confidence' and 'Health'.

Health means the condition of the player. It decreases if the player plays too much minutes or trains too much. Players with low health will be more injury-prone and perform worse.

Confidence is a bit more tricky. It also influence player performance like health. It can be best explained by quoting the creator Anders:

 
P.S. The colors (Green, Blue, Orange and Red) that are used as background are there to give you a quick indication. I have noticed that there are heavily used at other parts of the site. You already did see some of them yesterday ;-) .. Green and Blue are good signals, with Green being the best. You should try to avoid Orange and Red, with Red being the worse.

That's it for today. I glanced at the roster and discussed some weekness and strength of the team. In the next days i won't have much time to post, but i will try to look at the other 3 views (profile, contract and ratings). Later!