Three Tips I Can Give To A Potential General Manager

[Tagger 2,722]

It looks from the Job Interviews thread that we're looking for new General Managers, so I figured I'd make my 2 pointer this week about tips for anyone heading into the role:

 

1) Use TPE as a guide, not the sole determining factor

This isn't so much of an issue now that we have the portal. but back in the days of updating on the forum we used to have threads for players and their TPE was listed in the title, which to a newer member would insinuate it as the really important thing to look at, but at the end of the day, you're best just using it as a guide. Some examples:

 

- A player having 700 TPE is great, but if he's in his last season, he's lost a lot of that to regression.

- If a players in his second season and he's got 400 TPE, that would look very promising, but if he hasn't posted in a month, chances are he's not going to earning much more TPE in the near future.

- A player has 1000 TPE, that's awesome! But where is it allocated? If he's got 99's in attributes like fighting and penalty shot, maybe he won't play as good on the ice as his TPE indicates.

 

Another instance this is important is for drafts, when TPE counts are going to be pretty close given the short span of which players have had to earn it. Instead of just looking at TPE, consider other important factors such as:

 

- When did they create their player? If a player has 5 TPE more than the next guy, but the guy who's behind created a month later, that suggests he's earning points at a much greater rate than the one with the more TPE.

- How are they earning their points? Are they willing to write/create graphics on a regular basis to earn that extra TPE or are they more inclined to submit solely for welfare and practice facility?

- When were they last on? A player may be among the top 5 in rookies for TPE, but if he hasn't been on in a month, what are the chances he'll be adding to that once he's drafted?

 

2) Respect the decisions of team-mates

 

One thing that's for certain about being a general manager is that there are things that are just going to go your way. Whether that's the sim engine having you expectantly lose to a team of three players, your first round selection going inactive immediately after drafting, a player retiring earlier than you anticipated, these are just part and parcel of the game that we play. One thing that some managers have trouble dealing with though is players exercising their options to leave the team via free agency or requesting a trade. The thing to remember about a player wanting to leave is this: You only become a reason for the decision a player makes unless you make yourself the reason. So long as you treat your players with respect and are continuously looking for ways to progress the team further down the path you are taking, you will not be the reason why a player wants to leave. More often than not, if you treat them the right way, players will not want to leave you. But still, you could have done everything in your power to keep someone, they may still want to look elsewhere and really there's too many reasons to list here why someone would want to leave a team. The best thing to do though if someone has made their decision to leave and join another team, best thing to do is just thank them for their time with the team and wish them luck with their new one. Don't get me wrong, if you want to keep the guy, by all means keep talking with him to see what it would take to bring him back, but if the player does choose to leave, don't get all up-in-arms about it, because all that does is gives people a reason to not join you in the future. Trades are little more difficult than Free Agency in that the player who may want to move away has a value to your team and even the player wanting away will not expect you to give him away for free. However, providing you set fair values for your player, there should be no negative stigma surrounding it and even if there is, should the player wanting away become disgruntled and make their annoyance at not being traded public, provided you've set a fair value, the league will support you. 

 

3) Don't be afraid to ask for advice

 

Being a GM is a job like no other in that it is the only job in the VHL with a competitive element to it. In that regard, a member who is a new general manager may look at this as a reason to not ask questions about things that are involved with the job out of fear of looking "weak" in comparison to other general managers. However, if it is your first time and maybe you haven't been in the league too long, your players are going to understand that you're not instantly familiar with everything so they won't have any qualms about answering questions you have, because ultimately they want the team to succeed just as much as you do. In addition, if you talk to a player about decisions that you're looking at making that you want a second opinion on, it shows that you respect their opinion and they will appreciate you more for listening to what you think is the best way to go about things. Something that somewhat ties into this is that in these kinds of leagues, there are situations where you do something that isn't allowed or is against the rules and you just weren't aware that was the case and wouldn't have known about it until confronted with it. It happens to all of us, you can have read the entire rule-book fifty times over and there'll still be some stuff you could go on to do that you'd still find out to be illegal. Best thing is just own up to it, say "My bad, wasn't aware of it" and consider it a learning experience. I'm not going to say there won't be some people that will act irrationally in regards to that (Although to be honest I think pretty much all of them have gone now) but the people up top will understand that it was nothing malicious on your part so there's no need to engage the accusers in unnecessary dialogue.

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Tagger

[Spade18 1,304]

I'm looking forward to reading this lol

[Banackock 7,772]

3 minutes ago, Spade18 said:

I'm looking forward to reading this lol

 

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

1.) Make sure you have a goalie

2.) Line strategies don't actually matter, but combinations do

3.) Offense is King.

[Devise 4,475]

17 minutes ago, Fire Hakstol said:

1.) Make sure you have a goalie

2.) Line strategies don't actually matter, but combinations do

3.) Offense is King.

 

1. Obviously

2. Not true. I've messed with line strategies tons in my extended GM career and not only was able to find success but often produce results. Someone with high scoring on the point on the PP is an example, and setting them to higher offense either on the PP or even regularly can matter. Essentially what I'd say for 2 is pay attention to your roster. It isn't just about combo's, strategise matter based on your players. If you have a player with 40 defense playing on a 4 defense line for example, your probably not going to get results. Diversity of player builds and multiple centers are very helpful in allowing you the flexibility to change up lines and strategies against a variety of opponents. Even when....

3) Offense is king. This is a cold hard truth. 

[Tagger 2,722]

1 hour ago, Spade18 said:

I'm looking forward to reading this lol

I've done it now

[diamond_ace 3,106]

6 hours ago, Tagger said:

 

- A player has 1000 TPE, that's awesome! But where is it allocated? If he's got 99's in attributes like fighting and penalty shot, maybe he won't play as good on the ice as his TPE indicates.

 

A player has 989 TPE, that's awesome! But where is it allocated? If he has a seemingly logical defensive D build, but has jack shit in scoring, even though the build should reasonably do as intended, it won't do as intended and he will become one of the historically worst TPE-for-performance players in the history of the league.

[Devise 4,475]

12 minutes ago, diamond_ace said:

A player has 989 TPE, that's awesome! But where is it allocated? If he has a seemingly logical defensive D build, but has jack shit in scoring, even though the build should reasonably do as intended, it won't do as intended and he will become one of the historically worst TPE-for-performance players in the history of the league.

 

6 hours ago, Fire Hakstol said:

1.) Make sure you have a goalie

2.) Line strategies don't actually matter, but combinations do

3.) Offense is King.

 

I direct your attention to amendment number 3. 

[diamond_ace 3,106]

5 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

 

I direct your attention to amendment number 3. 

Intranquilo should still have done something. Like I get I was never going to be the top goals guy, that was kind of the point, but there were better players at the actual defensive stats, despite me 1. having more TPE and 2. devoting my entire build to it.

 

If things played out as the build would indicate, the Wylde would possibly be called the Intranquilo.

Edited August 5, 2018 by diamond_ace

[Devise 4,475]

Just now, diamond_ace said:

Intranquilo should still have done something. Like I get I was never going to be the top goals guy, that was kind of the point, but there were better players at the actual defensive stats, despite me 1. having more TPE and 2. devoting my entire build to it.

 

It's just a sim thing. Purely defensive players never seem to work in our sim, historically. I'm not disagreeing that it's not a little whack. The sim just favors teams and players who lean offensive, and our understanding of what the defensive stat actually really does on sim results hasn't ever I think hampered down. It gets built in line with Skating for some people, even offensive minded people and things always seem to just work out. You'd figure that putting more into defense than any other stat should create a situation where a player especially as a D gets the most shot blocks. 

 

Too much of the defensive aspect of the sim engine is reliant on how well your team is doing ultimately. So your not ever to likely see the impact a player like Intraquilo made on the ice one way or the other.