Subject: Questions & Answers

You folks are missing out. Nothing is more fun than a 5 hour playoff hockey game. Imagine how many heart attacks you'd suffer watching a game like that on PPTV.

I'm not a big fan of shoot-outs myself, but I guess the PPM programmers won't be willing to re-do this as they have their hands full of soccer programming right now.

I like that Denmark have another danish player in the NHL.

Can anyone direct me to a thread that discusses various strengths and weaknesses of the different team styles against each other? (normal, defensive, break up, counter attack, etc.)

Emile, I was redirected to this thread once before, so I'm paying it forward to you. It contains a discussion on counter-tactics.

http://glanvalleyeaglets.wordpress.com/

Do each lines get same minutes of ice time? Or does 1st line gets more than 2nd, 2nd more than 3rd, and 3rd more than 4th?

They get the same. I forget the exact breakdown. I think it is a minute per line. It is in the works, if I remember correctly, to allow a manager to control the amount of ice time one line gets compared to the others but nothing like that is implemented right now.

I've just had the sort of idea that gives game developers nightmares: would anyone else like to see the tactics be line specific instead of match specific? It would add a very layered approach to strategy and player/line development.

I would love that. I think it would be nice to have offensive and defensive style lines. Add to that "matchups" where the home team can match line by line. I think that'd be a lot of work.

Well in a way you can already set up you lines as more offensive or defensive using the attributes of your players. But i guess it would be interesting to have the same approach that is used with hockey arena. Like storming the net or blue line shooters and so on...

Line matching is a nice idea too. Though, what I was getting at is, if you build a strong line defensively, being able to set its tactic to defensive might be nice, without limiting your kick-ass offensive line to being defensive as well.

It might be nice to be able to change your tactic if various conditions are met during the match (like you're up 2 goals going into the third and want to switch tactics to breaking, or defense).

Role lines might be a nice option too (line combinations that only got used if conditions were met--like a shut down line, or an energy line,). Obviously, some of these features might be a good PRO pack addition...

(That one's for the money guys )

What I'd like to be able to do is designate lines as "scoring1" or "checking1" rather than the meaningless "line1", "line2", etc. Then the coach would attempt to match "checking1" against the opponent's "scoring1".

At this point, the tactical question would be which of the 4 lines you set will play at any point during the game. If you're behind, drop a checking line and roll the scorers more often. If you're ahead, drop the weakest scoring line or add an extra checking line into the rotation. These are the type of pre-game tactical questions I think we should be answering rather than when to simply drop the fourth line.

I think the current tactics system is rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. I'd like to cut that out of the equation altogether in lieu of real tactical questions like how many scoring vs checking lines you want to play at any point of the game.

Also, if possible, I think a little AI discretion would be nice. If my goalie lets in 3 soft goals in the first, I'd like him swapped out on the coach's initiative rather than a pre-set option to change him after the period is over. Same goes if one of my lines is -3 in the first 10 minutes of the game or a player collects several consecutive minor penalties... they deserve a benching.

these are some great ideas. You guys should post them in the suggestion thread ppm.powerplaymanager.com/...

I do know improvements to the lines/tactics are supposedly being worked on though I don;t know all the details.

Good point nsblues, I only just found that thread--I wonder, is there a Forum Admin that could move the ideas above over to that thread en masse?