Titre: TIPS FOR A NOOB??

good stuff, thanks a lot jim! it's good to know people are helpful and actually checking the forums

one more question: regarding practice, is it best to focus for a while on one area, say the one they will improve the fastest with, or is it best to switch it up every day and hit a different area??

I'd recommend focusing on staying as close as possible to the ratio you choose for your players. For example, most (all?) people train their goalies 2-1-1 Goal-Pass-Tec, so first, get your player into that ratio by training the farthest out-of-line skill till it's in-line, then for every 2 points you train in goal, train 1 each in pass and technique.

does farthest out-of-line skill mean the one with the lowest grey number?

No, it means you have to calculate the ratio of your primary and secondary attributes, not qualities. If your goalie is currently 70-50-45 Goal-Pas-Tec for example, you would train Goal until it gets to 90, then alternate 2 in Goal and 1 in Tec until Goal is 100 and Tec is 50, then since all attributes are "in ratio", you train 2 in Goal, 1 in Pass, 1 in Tec for the rest of his life.

i don't fully understand...do i want to do this with all of my players? make their primary attributes double what their secondary attributes are? and do i only want to focus on the 3 main attributes of each player? i see players on the market that have been trained a little bit in all of them (def, off, sho, pas, tec, agg, etc.)

Yes. Everyone uses a 2:1:1 ratio. Most everyone anyway. And the skaters have 3 secondaries. You need shot for forwards and Tech for dmen. Tech helps cut down on penalties. Although they have apparently lessened the need for Tech in one of the more recent updates. I still train it as a full secondary just to be sure.

Adding on to [manager=jkjohnso]'s question, what do you recommend training shooting to? I think I read somewhere that it may not be as important for centers as wingers, but I'm not sure on the best ratios for each position. I was currently looking at keeping it up with offense for wingers, and training it as a secondary for centers and maybe even defense. Curious what the recommendation is though.

I actually haven't scouted many wingers. I've seen some with shot equal to offense, some with it equal to the other secondaries, and some with it somewhere in between.

I personally was trying to avoid the 2:1:1 ratio for the longest time. I only switched over after scouting a bunch of I.1 players over the last few seasons. Now I'm mostly trying to 'fix' my players. I prefer to have shot = offense, but that's probably just me being stubborn. I think it's pretty obvious that primary is the main concern of the PPM staff.

yay i can finally use the market! i'm buying cheap players to boost my team. would it be wise to also buy cheap staff members for the various facilities? if so, should i try to get one for all of my facilities?

i'd get staff soon, but don't get bottom of the barrel.

Actually I would be wary of purchasing staff straight off. I tried it and lost $7 million undoing my mistake. At the levels your facilities will be at, none but the bottom of the barrel staff will have much affect, and even then it's negligible.

I bought 3 staff members when I was starting out who had OVR of around 90ish-120ish because they were all very affordable and I thought they'd help me jump right in. They had no more effect on my facilities than the crap staff that were applying directly to me who cost under $500/day. Oh yeah, and because of my income and the fact that the staff members I bought earned $60,000-$90,000/day (oops, I missed that when I was looking to buy) I had to take out a loan in order to be able to prematurely end their contracts so I didn't lose my team just trying to pay their wages, hence the $7 million loss.

I'd suggest maxing out your small stands in your arena, purchasing players to make your team competitive (try looking at players around 350 OVR and up who are built to a 2:1:1 ratio), and focus on building up your facilities, especially the big 4. The big 4 are of course Training, Regeneration, HR & Econ, and the Sports Academy.

ughhhh!!!! i didn't realize they were that expensive by the DAY. i bought 3 really good but cheap staff. so the salary number that is given is what he makes a day???

i've already got all my small stands maxed out though...will that hold me over or do i need to take a loan and fire some peeps? man being a noob sucks.

We can't see their salary numbers, so it's hard to say. You'll have to do the math and see based on how long their contracts are. I know I couldn't make the math work at the time and had to take out the loan to get rid of them. Just remember, if you're going to be in the red for 21 straight days, you'll lose your team and have to start over.