Yet another gameplay slider setting :)

One thing I'm not particularly happy about is how fast players still can stop and start/change directions. I want more inertia in that and I've seen other slider settings succeed in that, but I'm not quite sure how to achieve it. I don't think it's just agility? 

It seems as if e.g. OCCAM's settings (https://forums.ea.com/discussions/nhl-25-general-discussion-en/occams-nhl-25-cpu-vs-cpu-sliders/5047333) sets the base game speed to 0 and then turns up player speed and acceleration instead... 

My fatigue and recovery sliders are very different from yours. I have fatigue effect at 99/100 and recovery at 10/100. Why you ask? This way when players are tired, their attributes drop. They skate slower, they dont shoot as hard and so on. I have recovery set low so it gives 3rd and 4th liners a chance to play. With a 56/100 recovery, you will only get the first two lines playing. Next game, look at how many minutes your bottom 6 play, then lower recovery to 10/100 then see how the TTOI is much more spread out. 

Player attributes I have at 8/10. The belief is that at 0/10, all players are the same. A 79 rated player has just as much of a chance to be the scoring leader as a 99 rated player. At 10/10, there is no way a 79 rated player will be in the top 10 in scoring. This slider represents the gap between the highs and lows. Example: Let’s take Brenden Gallagher. At 0/10, he could be the scoring champ. At 5/10 he could be in the top 25 in scoring and at 10/10 there is no way he will be in the Top 10 because the gap is so wide between him and the top players. You have yours at 6/10. I have mine at 8/10 to give mid tier forwards a chance to compete.

Hitting sliders. The higher the numbers, the higher the effect. You have size effect at 26/100. At 0/100, all players will hit the same regardless of size. A guy who is 5’1” will have the same effect as a player who is 6’9”. At 100/100, there is no way a smaller forward will move a 6’9” player. This understanding goes for speed and preparedness, checking and balance effects, the lower the numbers, the less effect. I’ll have mine at 80/100. I’ll bump up my hitting power but lower the aggression slider to 10/100. At 50/100, you’ll see 125 hits per game.. at minimum.

Sorry for the book, but hey, you did ask 

Hi, and thanks for your response! 😊

Fatigue Settings: I do also notice a quite significant drop in player performance with my current settings. If I were to use your settings (99/100 for fatigue effect and 19/100 for recovery), I'm pretty sure my players would be completely gassed halfway through the first period—even with conservative play (minimal skating, lots of gliding). That said, I’m wondering whether fatigue scales with period length. If it does not, the chosen period length will of course have a huge effect on fatigue.

Player attributes: That lines up with what the tooltip suggests and what I’ve read online. I admit that I haven't put a lot of attention to this factor yet, so I have left it at a moderate increase. I see it as a fine-tuning tool— Right now, I'm still trying to nail down the overall pace and feel first so that tactical play becomes viable (without encouraging an overly offensive style at the expense of good defense). And all that while making sure that the situations the game creates are still variable and interesting.

Hitting slider: As mentioned, I think "hitting power" mostly acts as a bonus layered on top of a physics-based collision system (that is influenced mostly by the "stumble threshold"). Personally, I’ve had good results increasing the player collision footprint ("hitting assistance") while keeping aggression high and hitting power low. This makes players engage and disrupt puck carriers more realistically, without those exaggerated, arcade-style hits. When I drop aggression too low I notice defenders become overly passive —especially on rushes—, even if my strategy settings are aggressive. 

Of course, as with many sliders, it’s difficult to isolate their exact impact without controlled testing.

RE Fatigue settings, not all lines are supposed to be at full strength at all times. If they were, then only the 1st and 2nd lines would play. I dont know how many min you are playing per period, but start at 20/100, then at the end of the game, look at the total ice time and note the difference between the 1st line vs the 4th liners. I set mine so that my good first line guys will get about 20 min per game +-2 min.. This of course reflects PP and PK time. Then I look at the 4th liners and see if they get at least 9min TTOI per game. For me, if guys like Ovi, Mathews and McDavid are getting 29min of ice time, then recovery is just too high. I play 7min periods to 10/100 recovery gets me those numbers. Your milage may vary. 

And yes, sliders are like a spider web, you mess with one, you could effect others. So you only move 1 slider at a time and look at the effects. Im looking at the AI and my Coach's strategy slider and trying to figure out what exactly they do because they effect other teams differently 

I play BAP goalie only so I am still trying to figure out what these sliders do. Part of me thinks that raising these sliders effects a players Offensive rating. A 6/6 I noticed a lot more one timers, behind the back passing, more creative offense and they score a lot more off me and my team scores less. BUT on the other side of that coin, the shot differential between my team and the other team is less (40shots for my team vs 30 for theirs). But at 2/6, then I can get more shut outs, the offence is very vanilla and the shots will have a large differential. (60 for my team vs 22 for them). I understand that at 0/6, there are no adjustments and at 6/6 there are a lot more. I havent figured out the best setting yet. So I bounce between 3-5/6

I think my hit power is pretty low, not as low as yours but its low. But even with my aggression setting down to 5/100, the hits are way too high per game. In a 7min game with 5/100 aggression, Ill still get 80hits per a 21min game. My team owns 8 of the top 10 hits on the leader board. I have the hit power low, but up the speed/size/checkingvbalance/Prepardaness sliders to 80-85/100. There is always a balance.