Why master the Training Camp program?
How can training your players correctly really help? Well first of all, you get
the added benefit of more gains on your abilities of course. Secondly, the
entire league benefits since the talent pool will build faster. I think it is a
win-win for everybody to optimize their training procedures. I know there are
coaches who will ignore my advice, but I guess the coaches that listen will have
better rosters than they will...
Understanding the Training Camp program?
What's to understand about the Training Camp program? It is simple to use,
you enter the percentage to spend on an abitlity until you total 100% for that
player. Then you repeat for the other 62 players on your roster. You're done
right? Wrong!!! The biggest mistake you can make is just blindly applying
percentages to the abilities you want to boost. The program has some unusual
quirks that you should know about first. We can then use them to our advantage
for training the players.
The program uses the old "Odd prod, Even Steven" rule. What does that mean?
Well the program will round up or down a number when it is XX.5 based on the
1st whole number digit. Here is an example: A player is at 80 points currently
and receives a 25% camp. He has a potential for that ability of 90 points. So
his post camp ability score is (90 - 80) * .25 + 80 = 82.5 for that ability.
Broken down it looks like (Potential - Current) * (Camp% / 100) + Current =
Post Camp score. The program is designed to round to the even number, so the
final score comes out to 82 for this ability. Notice how he lost .5 on the
rounding.
Now lets look at another example for the same guy: A player is at 80 points
currently and receives a 15% camp. He has a potential for that ability of 90
points. So his post camp ability score is (90 - 80) * .15 + 80 = 81.5 for that
ability. The program is designed to round to the even number, so the final score
comes out to 82 for this ability. Wait a minute, he had 82 in the first
example. If I spend 10% less I still get the same results??? Yes you do in this
example.
That will give you 10% to place on other abilities, and you still get the largest
increase possible. There are other things you should consider when training players.
"Working the system" or "getting the most bang for your buck?"
Other common things to look out for are:
8 points of potential (eg. 80 current with 88 potential) gets a 2 point gain with
a 20% camp or 25% camp. This also holds true for 9 points of potential.
17 points of potential (eg. 80 current with 97 potential) gets a 3 point gain with
a 15% camp but only a 4 point gain with a 25% camp. I am not saying it is wrong to
use 25%, just showing that you can save 10% for another important ability and still
receive a nice gain in the process.
13 points of potential (eg. 80 current with 93 potential) gets a 3 point gain with
a 20% camp or 25% camp.
5 points of potential (eg. 80 current with 85 potential) gets a 1 point gain with
a 15%, 20% or 25% camp. Also pay close attention to the rounding rule above, as
you can get a 1 point gain with 10% camp in the right situation.
4 points of potential (eg. 80 current with 84 potential) gets a 1 point gain with
a 15%, 20% or 25% camp.
I recommend using a 20% camp on 4 abilities for rookies (using 5% on the remaining
abilities), especially when they need a boost in several categories. Read my other
articles to see how this is a good strategy for rookies. I think this strategy
works best for skill players like WR, CB, and S. That will allow you to train SP,
AC, AG, and HA or EN depending on what the player needs the most help on. There are
times when I don't follow this rule when a player really only needs help on 3 abilities.
Another technique I commonly use for skill players that are average in all except 1 category
is to go with 25%, 20%, 20%, 15% (using the 25% on the lowest ability and 15% on the
highest ability). The other benefit of training 4 categories is you will have a better
understanding where the player has potential to grow. If you only work on 3 abilities
you don't get a good picture to help make those keep or dump decisions...
