I’ve wrote about it awhile ago but now I’ve found how use the counter against each Power plays / Penalty killing tactic, thanks to generous soul on the ppm forum.

First remember that you want to at least get a decent % for your team for each or it might not matter if your are using a counter (a 100% passive box vs a 0% shooting from point might will probably be ok anyway)

Has a quick remember here the description  of all tactic (description from the guide):

Shooting from the point: This power play variant has two players at the blue line and their task is to shoot often with the player in front of the net trying to deflect the shots or pounce on the rebounds.

Umbrella: This power play has only one player on the point who works as the quarterback for the power play. His task is to deal passes to the players at the boards who may then shoot or pass the puck.

Overload: The purpose of this power play is to focus the attention of penalty killers on one side. This opens up room for one player on the weak side who can shoot the puck after it is fed to him.

Diamond: When you play diamond on the penalty kill, your players form a diamond shape. One player guards the area in front of the net and one player is closer to the blue line.

Passive box: Passive box means that penalty killers are keeping relatively close to each other to guard the area in front of the net and in the slot. This gives more room to the power play along the boards.

Active box: This option means that your penalty killers quickly close down on the players with the puck who then have less time to set up a power play combination. The disadvantage is, that this can open up the slot for the opponent.

Power Play table :

Penalty kill table:

This is the part 2 of our previous Tactic post. You can check the previous post at this address : tactic part 1 and you can check out our article about line management.

Rotate three lines

The main advantage of rotating 3 line is it give more ice to your best player, however it will drain your player energy and they might not be fit enough for the playoff (particularly if you are playing with a very high game importance like we talked in the last post.

Ice time percentage by line

You always wanted to manage your team like most NHL team, give your top player more ice time and use the other line to give them a break ? You can do that by setting the ice time per line in the tactic.

This option is really cool and it might reduce the need to rotate 3 lines, by simply giving the 4 lines a really low percentage.

Like I said many times be careful not to overuse your player, you want them to be able to stay up in the playoff too.

I can be a great way to balance out your team , like going 30/30/30/10 or 25% every where, then rotate 3 line if you are losing.

Changing the goalie

If your goalie is having a bad game get him out of there and put the backup goalie. Since my goalie no1 is usually my best goalie and wait until there is a 3-5 goal difference to remove him.

Reduce to rotation of three lines

You’re losing and you don’t like that, they drop the 4th line and put your best guy on the ice.

This option give a nice alternative instead of the rotate three line option, your top players won’t get too much fatigue when you are winning but they will take thing in hand and maybe make you win a couple of tight game that you might have lost if you stayed with 4 line.

React to the opponent’s withdrawal of the fourth line

This is a counter to the rotate three line and reduce rotation of three line by the opponent. If he’s putting only is best player on ice you might has well give him a decent challenge by doing the same thing.

Pull the goalie

If you’re trailing behind by a goal or two at the end of the game you can remove the goalie and put a extra forward to put pressure and try to score a goal. You have more chance of getting scored but you are losing anyway…

pull the goalie because sometime he won’t help anyway

Tactic is probably the most confusing thing in powerplay manager.

There so many things to set up that I need to split this in two  post to cover each section.

Today we focus on the 4 first point: Game importance / Style of play / Power plays / Penalty killing

Game importance

The importance you give to each game will have a direct impact on the energy level of your player. If you play very high most of your game your player will lack the energy to perform during the playoff.

Here a table that shows how much you lose energy when playing a game:

This can change a lot depending on your situation, you have a team that have better average than most other team, might make sense to start at low or very low and adjust it mid season. You are one position of making the playoff, might be good to pump it up to high or very high to increase your chance of making the playoff. You against a team that you have ultimately no chance of winning, perhaps the best option is to drop everything to low to manage your player.

More info : http://www.succeed2k.com/ppm-hockey-articles/ppm-new-tactics-explained-dp1.html

Style of play

Some tactic depends on your team but universally each tactic is strong against another tactic and weak against a different tactic. This rock paper scissor kind of setup is called  “Ring of Counter-Tactics” and here what it should look like: Normal > Defensive > Offensive > Forechecking > Counterattacks > Breaking up > Normal

So if we do a table we have (first column beat  X) :

You can read more about it at : http://www.succeed2k.com/ppm-hockey-articles/tactics-countertactics.html

You can check the full analysis for this ring of tactic on this site.

Power plays / Penalty killing

This one is tricky, because I’ve still not found what the ring of counter for that one and that even if you’re using the counter if your player never played with that type of power play or penalty kill they won’t necessarily do well vs a team who well trained with that tactic.

First you want to at least get the % of your team on that to 33% in each or 100 % in one.

Why would you like to have them up to the same value ? so you can them switching depending on what the opponent is playing.

Note the following table is incomplete it’s mostly come from some player told me and my personal experience (My team is 100% for Shooting from the Point & Active box)

Power Play table :

Penalty kill table:

I will fill the table when I got more info. Sorry about that. I’ll try to track when I score in PP and when I get scored in PK to see is there a correlation.

From what I read and from what other manager told me it a balanced player is a player that have stats balance between the primary stat and the secondary stats like 100/70/70 to 100/30/30 and 100/50/50 behind probably the proportion the give the best result. On top of that you want to have your technique at the same number that aggression is to reduce penalty and be sure to train them in shooting or else they will be efficient in the opponent zone but wont be able get a decent shot on the net.

mortal kombat skill = very important

So a good player is a player that balance, with high attribute value (if you want them to help you right away), high quality of attribute and a high career longevity.

Having problem finding a coach ? You never get job applicant that want to be sporting director. you need a left handed defense man to play on your third line but the player from the sport academy keep giving you forward. Fear not, grab some money and you can try to recruit them on the market.

Be careful when hiring from the market, experience manage will try to sell you useless player, unbalance player or player at the end of their career at high price.
Be patient and search for some good deal. Scout some player or if a player is already scouted ask the manager who is scouting them.

Recruiting Player

Your need will change has you play but if you’re beginning you should definitely avoid player with low career longevity since you are in for the long-term these players do not worth your time.

On the other hand if you are aiming big this year you might get a cheap superstar at the end of their career, just don’t renew the contract.

Like we said before, be sure that the player has a high quality of attribute in the stat you need for the role you want to give him, that will help you with his training, and check that the stat are balanced so it will be easier to insert him in the team.

More Info: What a balanced player ? (check out this post for more detail )

Recruiting Staff

Recruiting staff is a bit easier since they have only 2 stats, keep in mind that they can cost a lot in salary, you can check their expected salary when you select the staff member you want to bid on. Since the market is over flooded with candidate you can most of the time get away with a member for 10-100k, I’ve read somewhere that player not from your country cost a bit more (I’ll come back to you on that) so keep that in mind when you are looking for new staff member.

I haven’t talked about it in my previous post about player but another very important aspect of the game is to make sure that your player play at the best position available and that the coach show them the right tactic.

How to make you line composition efficient? The basic way to do it is too simply put the best player on the first line, the good but not good enough for the first line on the second and same thing for the third and fourth line.

You can leave the fourth lines empty if you not planning on using the fourth line.

Note that your player will be more fatigue if they always play 3 line. You can check Sam Hansen post on the subject of using 3 lines instead of 4 at succeed2k.

How to choose the right player for the right position, goaltender have their own unique goaltending attribute so you no1 goaltender should probably be the one with the highest value in goaltending (Duh!), but remember to train technique and passing to make your goaltender a better goaltender overall than one with 500 in goaltending and 10 in passing/technique.

For defenseman, it easy it’s their defense skill that important and their passing and technique afterward. For your forward it depend on their position, they all need high offense but center must have a high passing and technique while winger need to have a high aggression and technique. Don’t forget to train you player accordingly to and take account the quality of the skill too like we talked in the previous article. A good example of that is a player with the following stat (25(10)pas., 20(50)tec. and 5(88) agr.) is a good center at the time because of his current skill but with time it will become a better winger since he will train much faster in aggression than passing).

Side note if you have the pro-pack you can create different set of line, one for game you know are easy, one for big games and one for friend game.

I personally tend to keep the same line-up whatever the game but, when you are playing a team you are sure to win maybe it’s a good idea to put your rookie and bench some veteran. It will reduce energy lost on your main player and will build chemistry and experience on your youngster.

These are mostly beginners tips, if you want more advance tips on line check out another post by Sam from suceed2k on line

Related :

My article on the players

Succeed2k post on line

Succeed2k post on 3 lines vs 4

The arena it’s where everything come down to, if your team win and have decent players you arena will be full. And the more place in the arena the more tickets you can sold Ka-Ching $!

Include some snack bar and souvenir shops to increase the profit.

Be sure you can fill your arena because the arena come with a cost of maintenance that increase has you build more places and get a better Zamboni^tm.

Don’t forget to upgrade your facilities has well, a good training center will help player progress faster in their training, while the sport academy will help you get better recruits every week.

The takeaway point here is to always be upgrading your arena and facilities but always keep so cash at hand for your player and staff salaries. You don’t want to go in the red because if you do you have 21 days to fix the team finance or you lose the team.

You start with no staff at all but don’t worry, it’s probably better that way. Staff cost a lot of money and their salaries go up pretty quickly too. So I wouldn’t recommend going to the market either since the market is flooded with applicant and a staff member with a 100 attribute cost a whopping sometime 90-100k.

Instead check out the weekly applicant that come to the arena for a job, they are usually not as good than the one on the market (sometime their stats are mostly garbage) but they don’t cost the premium of staff on the market. You can train him in order to become better.

The staff member effectiveness is increased via your installation so incompetent lecturer with good installation may be the same has a good (but pricey) lecturer in bad installation. Since installation cost less and can always be downgrade for money, focus on the installation before the staff.

After 6-7 season our employees will skill will have greatly increased and so is their salary.

The salary seems to increase with the year in your organization and the number of points in each attribute. (I’m not sure but double check the forum) Note that has the attributes grow so grow the salary exponentially meaning that a staffer with a  high attribute and a low one (let say 100/0) will cost sometime 10 time the cost of a staffer with balanced attribute (like 50/50)

you can see in this image a coach with 30 point less cost 3 times less too.

The takeaway point here is focus on recruiting cheap staff and train both attribute equally. Has your team grows and the money come in you will be able to pays those big salaries later.

OK, Ok guys! I’m going to write a quick guide on ppm because I made the mistake of not reading the guide when I started and now my team finance is a mess. If you’re like me the first thing you did when you started playing it goes look at your players and go around the interface a bit. So before going anywhere read the official ppm guide here, it contains all the basic you need to know about the game.

I don’t know why but I had a hard time finding where the guide was, I was easier to find it via google go figure.

Note take time to read the faq and rules just to be sure you won’t make the mistake of naming your team an inappropriate name or trolling the forum.

I promise guys, that’s the last time I’ll use that image

You start with no staff, a few player (enough for 3-4 line) and a very small arena.

Don’t worry Rome wasn’t build in a day and so is your team of super stars.

In the next coming part of the guide, we will talk about the three cornerstones of your team:  your players, your staff and your arena

Most say that they’re not more important that one or another, the player need the staff and the arena to train, take care of injury and play, the staff need the arena infrastructure to do its work and the arena need the staff to be taken care of, finally these player wills bring the crowds, glory and cash that goes with it to pays all this nice mix.

Part 2: Players

Part 3: Staff

Part 4: Arena

I tried something last game in cyberpuck, I’ve lowered my ticket price and the result are surprising:

By reducing my mid level ticket by 50% (from 200$ to 100$) and divided my higher level ticket by 3 (165$ to 50$) I’ve increased my revenue by more that 200% .

You should try it and check my other entry on this game here.