Vik's Training Guide

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Vik (Habs)
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Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:46 pm

Vik's Training Guide

Post by Vik (Habs) »

I'm going to ignore goalies for the most part here. Train them on Goalie until they're old men, play them as you see fit. They're kind of hard to mess up.


Staff

We'll start with what I really don't have much to tell you about.
Which staff should be on which program? The goodest.
What makes a good staff member? Not entirely sure.
Does staff actually have an effect on training? Probably?

The staff side of the game is very much underdeveloped so about all I have to say is make sure you have someone on each training program. Fortunately in this league, all the staff are the same so there's no need to overthink it.


Training resources

We'll jump from what I know nothing about to what I might know the most about. Years ago when I set my training to what it's at, I had to have someone do it manually because of the odd percentages. That prompted this response from (I believe) Dan:
Only if you tell me what's with those specific percentages... do you know how long it took me to slide the stupid little bar over to those exact numbers?? It was several seconds!
I'm probably going to cause him to lose even more seconds now. If you open the teams.ehm file, you'll find the following:

Code: Select all

Vik
 993  996  997  997 
 997  997  997  0 
 465  465  465  505 
 619  619  619  0 
 21  21  58 
 10  0  90 
 20  20 
-20 -20 
The last two lines I'm showing are the two of interest. The 20 20 line is for the pro team, the -20 -20 is the AHL. These numbers refer to General on-ice training and Special teams. If the percentages for those are set to 40 or higher, these go up by 1 each day up to a maximum of 20. If the percentages for these are set to 20 or below, they go down 1 each day to a minimum of -20. This leads to the obvious strategy: set General on-ice and Special teams at 40 until you max those out. When they're maxed out, drop the percentage to 21. The rest can go to Personal. Since I don't care how my AHL team does, I always go 90% Personal training and 10% whatever else.


Training programs

If you've ever looked at the "Configure training programs" section, you've seen all you need to know about the training programs (apparently you're not supposed to actually edit things through there so fair warning).
  • Rest
    • Don't train anything
  • Attack
    • Weights = regular
    • Cycling = regular
    • Skating = regular
    • Puckhandling = intensive
    • Videos = regular
  • Defense
    • Weights = intensive
    • Cycling = regular
    • Videos = regular
    • Defense = intensive
  • Goalie
    • Weights = regular
    • Cycling = regular
    • Skating = regular
    • Videos = regular
    • Goaltending = intensive
  • Physic
    • Weights = intensive
    • Cycling = intensive
    • Skating = intensive
So what is this?
  • Weights = develop strength
  • Cycling = develop endurance
  • Skating = develop skating
  • Puckhandling = develop stickhandling
  • Videos = develop positioning
  • Defense = develop checking
  • Goaltending = develop everything goaltending related
If you've noticed forwards tend to overdevelop stickhandling and dmen tend to overdevelop checking, that's because forwards typically get put on the Attack training program and D on the Defense program.

The strategy, then, is to figure out what you want to develop and choose the appropriate program:
  • Stickhandling => Attack (intensive)
  • Checking => Defense (intensive)
  • Positioning => Attack/Defense (regular)
  • Skating => Physic (intensive), Attack (regular)
  • Endurance => Physic (intensive), Attack/Defense (regular)
  • Strength => Physic/Defense (intensive), Attack (regular)

Development through training

Players can develop to their POT in whatever skill is being trained regardless of the ceiling. Although, higher POT guys are unlikely to make it all the way to their POT - don't expect to see a player with 93 POT actually developing everything to 93, but they should at least get in the 80s.

I find things tend to go faster in the AHL, especially lower ratings. I assume that's because of the 90% Personal training I always go with.


Development through games
  • Penalty: never goes up.
  • Leadership: only goes up as a result of playoff wins.
  • Everything else: can develop to the player's ceiling (POT * ceiling / 100 and round up).
Nothing groundbreaking here unless you thought games were the path to overdevelopment. In fact, playing prevents overdevelopment. Specifically in the AHL, if players are in the lineup and have overdeveloped at all, playing them can cause regression back to the ceiling. But, if a player's got ceilings in skills that can develop beyond their POT, playing them is the only way they're going to do it. And it's the only way to develop skills that can't be trained.

Ratings developed through playing in the AHL tend to top out at 75 (this also seems to apply to developing through training). Some might go over by a point or two and then regress back during the season, but it's generally 75. Also, higher POT players can sometimes go higher and are less likely to regress. Higher POT players are all around easier to develop (shocking as that is).

My strategy is to play guys in the AHL until they get their shooting/playmaking/hitting/faceoffs to 75ish, then sit them and let them overdevelop through training. This is why I'm always frustrated with our contract limit - it forces me to play guys I don't want to which prevents them from overdeveloping. Once they're good enough to play pro, there's not much to worry about. Seems like fewer minutes can help with overdevelopment, but I wouldn't keep a good player down just in hopes of that. They sometimes regress a little, but it shouldn't be a concern.

Speaking of minutes, I find more is generally better when it comes to development (they also cause more regression). But, I don't have anything to back that up and it could just be that top prospects tend to get top minutes rather than top minutes creating top prospects. At the very least, you shouldn't have to worry about limiting anybody's minutes (unless they're regressing).


Age

Players stop developing through training around 33ish. Hard to give an exact age, it's more like things slow down until they eventually stop. Once players are 34 or older, it seems safest to put them on rest to prevent regression. I've often found it easier to overdevelop players in their mid 20s than younger guys. Though that could just be my frustration in lack of development sticking in my mind more for those players.

Players stop developing through playing games at 27 or 28 (think you can get a little development at 27, but not much).


Regression

Older players (I can't give an exact age because it depends on more than just age (see: Thornton, Joe)) will get worse by playing in the AHL. If they're old enough (specifically beyond the age EHM retires most players), they'll also get worse by playing in the NHL. Training them on rest seems to slow the regression somewhat, but there's no avoiding it.

Also, skills that are developed through training seem to continue trending toward the player's POT year round. Even in the offseason or when the player can no longer develop through playing games. This creates an issue most have noticed: players with ratings beyond their POT in skills that develop through training, see the ratings drop down to the POT. I've tried every training program (including Goalie), but I've found no way to avoid this. Actually, that's not quite true. If you keep the player injured, they can't develop or regress. So, just take a tire iron to their knees in the offseason and hope they're back in time for next season. It isn't a rapid descent and, if the player is young enough, they can develop it back but, once they're too old to develop through playing, down they go and down they stay.




Think that's about all I got. Probably something I've missed/forgot and caveats here and there. If I think of something else, I'll let you know that I've updated this post. If you've got questions or are looking for clarification, I'm around until at least tomorrow.
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AvalancheGM
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Re: Vik's Training Guide

Post by AvalancheGM »

Interesting! You taught me a couple new things, though I'm grateful you didn't reveal my biggest secret.
The Colorado Avalanche - missing the playoffs every year since EHEC began
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Vik (Habs)
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Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:46 pm

Re: Vik's Training Guide

Post by Vik (Habs) »

Vik (Habs) wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:31 pm
  • Leadership: only goes up as a result of playoff wins.
One tiny asterisk came to mind on this. The game seems to view 40 as some sort of baseline so players can develop leadership up to 40 outside of the playoffs. Huge relief for anyone with sub 40 LE players, I'm sure.
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SharksGM
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Re: Vik's Training Guide

Post by SharksGM »

Vik (Habs) wrote: Wed Oct 07, 2020 5:55 pm
Vik (Habs) wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:31 pm
  • Leadership: only goes up as a result of playoff wins.
One tiny asterisk came to mind on this. The game seems to view 40 as some sort of baseline so players can develop leadership up to 40 outside of the playoffs. Huge relief for anyone with sub 40 LE players, I'm sure.
Well, Josh might be pleased to hear this since he drafted Noel Gunler and his 30 LE (that I may or may not have simply forgotten to change). It doesn't seem to have budged from there yet, though.

All prospects seem to develop sub-40 ratings very quickly even in juniors, so fear not the 90 POT, 20 OV prospect.
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