Note: Babalybeck wrote this tutorial on the Uniball forum. His post can be seen here. Babalybeck deserves full credit for all of this text, examples and screenshots.
How to win at hockey
There’s an enormous shortage of strategy guides for Uniball even though we have a community with lots of helpful people in it. Anyways, this is mainly because most people think they know what they are doing, they think that they were in the right place on defence and can’t understand what Corvette is ranting about. So who needs a strategy guide, hockey is easy! This state of mind hinders poor and average players from reaching the top; no matter how well they bounce and juke they still can’t seem to win as many games as they should. All of this happens because they don’t quite understand the finesse of playing without the ball, or thinking on deeper levels depending on the quality of the opponent. Or something else that seems like a minor thing. I want to change that. I want to help beginners or perhaps open up a mediocre player’s eyes for a new view on hockey. Well Baba, why on earth would you want to help players, aren’t we supposed to use every possible advantage we have to make sure we stay competitive? Probably, but I was really bored.
This is why I offer my advice. This is not the only way to play hockey. Feel free to disagree with me, feel free to post your own, different opinion here. The game is very complex; there is no one and only right way to play it. All I offer you is how I play the game of hockey and why I play it like I do. My way has worked pretty well for me.
Note: This is a very long read and chances are it won’t help you at all. Advance with caution. The guide is divided into two parts, beware.
Big thanks to Matt and Nik’s mum for contributing to the guide (or helping in other ways).
Think, think, think
The difference between miniball and hockey is that playing without the ball is much more important and harder to master in hockey. In small maps, defence is pretty straightforward and getting open is easy as there isn’t much space; you can see where you have to be. In hockey, you need to understand the fundamentals of playing on a big map. Driving around aimlessly will cost you dearly when distances grow large. You need to understand how your ship’s position is always relative to all other players and the ball. It’s like making a puzzle, the only difference being that you usually have about 0.1 seconds to complete it.
There’s an interesting concept called expected value (EV from now on) that I’ve learned from poker and applied to many situations, IRL as well. I will be using this concept throughout the guide. What it means is that all of your actions have a certain expected value, relative to what you have to sacrifice for the results (duh). Let's say you make a bet with a friend about tossing a coin. Each time you guess correctly you gain 20€ from him, each time your guess is incorrect you pay him 10€. Here your EV is positive because on average you gain 5€/bet. This is a good decision on your part (although you might think about finding new friends). So, how on earth does this relate to UB? Well, every single moment you play you’ll have to make decisions that affect the game. Should I turn left? Save boost for later? Pass or dribble? Why should I block right now? Of course, we don’t think about this that much since it all becomes routine when we have enough experience. Even if your decision turned out ok and your team scored a goal, it might not have been the best EV decision. Sometimes a stupid “juking through all three opponents (the Pollard-dive)” -suicide move works, but that doesn’t mean its EV is positive. Doing what has the highest EV in all situations is what we should aim for. That would be the perfect game.
Enough rambling. Let’s do it like Moses and start from the beginning.
Face-offs
These boring battles over the ball only serve one purpose: to give your team the ball. I can’t tell you how to win face-offs every time and I can’t tell you what exactly you should do in each particular situation, there are too many variables. What I can do, however, is offer some general tips on face-offs.
1. Before the ball gets loose, make sure either you or your teammate will get to your own goal before the opponent. Not many things look more pathetic than a breakaway goal from a face-off. This usually means at least one of the players on your team has to have the ship faced towards your own goal when the ball gets loose.
2. Don’t enter a fight you can’t win. Typical scenario: your team has just scored a goal and all the players on your team are deep down the opponent’s half. Your opponent has two players close to the face-off. Do not try to win the face-off, but instead race towards your own goal and prevent the breakaway goal. Unless your opponent sucks juicy monkey balls he will easily block you and pass to a teammate who gets a free goal.
3. Help your teammate by blocking when he’s alone at the face-off and opponents are closing in. Too often I see inexperienced teammates drive on top of me so that there are two of us on top of the spawning ball instead of one. Now the opponent can easily approach us and block us out of the face-off. It’s all about not giving your opponents enough time. By blocking opponents early (instead of driving straight to the face-off) you give your team a higher chance to win the face-off because the “villains” won’t make it to the spawn in time.
4. When you decide to enter a face-off, have a plan! Usually it’s best to either hold shoot and pass the ball to a teammate or to start leaving from the face-off just before the ball becomes gravable (nice word). Compare this to sitting still like a duck and yelling “OMFG I GOT THE BALL LOL!” and THEN deciding to move someplace. This is almost a guaranteed method to lose possession of the ball. In conclusion, you have to know exactly when the ball becomes loose, so that you can react slightly before it actually happens.
5. Don’t double-grav, you annoying wannabe tuga! This applies to all situations in game. Double-graving means that you, either or purpose or by mistake, try to catch the ball when your teammate has lost it when you are very close to each other. We all know that the ball has to travel a certain distance away from your ship before you can catch it again. Because your team shares the same grav field, it is much, much harder to find that “gap” when there are two players running for the ball. Remember, the ball has to escape both of your ships’ grav fields before you can grav it again. So, instead of trying to be a hero and annoying the hell out of a more experienced teammate by chasing the ball, block the opponent and let your satisfied companion capture some ball.
6. Lastly, there is one situation where you should NOT move in advance at the face-off and naturally this is when you are the only player there. It looks funny when a lone player waits at the face-off and boosts away just before the ball spawns, causing him to fly away from the face-off without the ball. Even though this is something extremely trivial, I have done it occasionally and seen many others do it as well. Baba’d.
7. Under no circumstances do you block an opponent’s ship into one of your teammate’s ships! Just don't do it! It is not helpful and just annoys the hell out of your teammate. Another helpful tip is that when trying to win a face-off with or without your teammate, try to get in between your opponent’s ships. Separating them will make it easier to win the face-off (as they will end up blocking you into one another).
Defence
Err, the best defence is a good offence! Well maybe, but we all have to defend in UB. Playing without the ball on a large map like hockey is one of the hardest things to learn and this is where most inexperienced players struggle. This is also why I am often the last man back in my hocks, I like controlling the defence and guiding my teammates.
People often ask me how to play defence and I’ve never managed to give a simple answer. It all depends on your teammates and your opponents, and explaining something like relative positioning is very hard. This is why I’ll bomb you all with pics! I’ll present typical defensive scenarios and explain what I think is the best thing to do and more importantly, why. Before we get to set pieces, here’s some very trivial advice on defence.
1. Don’t let a player get past you. … Dot, dot, dot. Nice advice, B! Yes, even coming from me this sounds moronic, but let’s dwell on this for a while. What I mean is, the worst thing that can happen when you challenge an attacker is that he gets past you and creates a 3-on-2 (ignoring him scoring). If you think it’s best to ram into your opponent, brake as soon as you’ve hit or actually supposed to hit. This way, when you miss you haven’t completely outplayed yourself and still have a great chance to catch up with the opponent. This applies in all of Uniball. Make the best out of bad situations by thinking ahead. Think about it like this: as long as you don’t let the attacker get past you or shoot, his team can’t score. Preventing passes is a “bonus”, doing the aforementioned is the basics.
2. Know when to double. Doubling an opponent can be very rewarding as it is an easy way to capture the ball. However, do it wrong and the opposition gets a 3-on-1 or 2-on-1. You should usually only double when the following criteria are filled: a) you know your teammate knows how to double, b) your opponent is “trapped”, c) you already know what to do after you’ve doubled and d) you have covered all passing lanes forward (towards your goal). The most common mistake is when people double when an opponent is close to a wall and they leave the space close to the wall uncovered, giving the opponent an easy wall pass. I have no idea why people don’t see it coming, it happens way too often.
3. When you’re the last man back, you have to play it safe and boring. Don’t try to ram that attacker when you know he’ll pass the ball off the wall towards the goal and his teammate will score. Don’t head recklessly on offence when your team just got the ball - sometimes you will be needed for a quick counter-attack, but more often than not you still have to play it safe in case your teammate loses the ball, causing a tough counter-counter-attack.
4. Learn how to stall! If you’re faced with a 2-on-1, do everything to slow down the attack. Slowly let your opponents approach the goal, force the ball carrier to either make a pass or challenge you by approaching him early on (however, be sure that the only pass he can make won’t result in a breakaway). The biggest EV move you can make (excluding just getting the ball, which is pretty rare on a 2-on-1) is to get one or both of your teammates back on defence, and this can only be achieved by stalling the offence. When left with a 2-on-1 in front of your goal, the only thing you can do is close down the person with the ball. He has two options. One is to go past you and score (which is pretty easy when you charge out) or then he can pass across. You must try to block one of these instead of just sitting there. If it’s globe you’re playing against he’ll probably try to shoot, if it’s InsaneAss he’ll probably try to pass. Know your opponents (refer to #9).
5. Every time you challenge an opponent, there is a possibility that you’ll steal the ball. This is why it is important to do it each and every time you have the opportunity. Always apply pressure on your opponent if you can afford getting outplayed (meaning someone’s lower on defence than you are and you won’t be out of play for a long time). By taking more shots, your overall probability of countering the attack increases, which leads to a higher EV. Naturally this excludes moronic plays like chasing someone around a goal when you’re five ship lengths away etc. This also brings up something interesting. Let’s say we have noob1, noob2 and Elite on defence. Because Elite’s chances of stealing the ball are significantly higher than noob1’s and noob2’s, he should be challenging the ball carrier, right? Perhaps. You also have to consider the fact that Elite’s defensive knowledge is on a high level compared to the two noobs who probably can’t play last man back and will give away many breakaway goals. Elite has to choose between risking it now or letting the noobs challenge up front, which most likely results in Elite’s team having to play goal defence since the noobs rarely steal the ball. Elite has to consider how good his opponents are on attack and how good his team is on goal defence and compare this to the probability of successfully challenging the ball carrier up front. What are his chances of stealing the ball now, and if he misses and is outplayed, what is the probability for his team preventing the opposition from scoring? Elite has to assess all of these factors. In many games this leads to situations where maximal EV isn’t achieved, because the most talented player can’t rely on the other two to cover him. If the noobs had just a little more understanding and discipline on defence, Elite’s team could play him up front, resulting in many steals because now he doesn’t need to worry about getting outplayed as his teammates will cover/stall for him. This is why understanding defence is so important. You increase/decrease the quality of the whole team’s defence by the decisions you do much more on defence than what your impact is on offence. You have to play as a team on defence, understanding that everything you do will affect what the other two players on your team do much more than on offence.
6. On goal defence, the easiest and most used method is having two players cover both sides of the goal and one player cover the middle or chasing the ball. When playing like this, you don’t have to move much! With really small movements you can cover the entire goal. When your opponents pass in front of the goal they want you to start panicking and diving/moving around recklessly to create an opening. Just cover the area you have to cover and you’ll notice your opponents will have a hard time scoring. Remember to shift your position accordingly to the ball; when the ball is on the left side and the remaining two opponents are both on the right side of the goal, the person defending the left side can move a little to the right, because the right side of the goal is now the only place your opponent can score (a pass off the square to fake the goalie would only work if there was an opponent waiting for it). Also remember to block before you get blocked! When defending the goal like this it is common for the opponent to have one guy blocking the defenders on the line (usually the one's on the sides). To counter this you must block the offender just above the goal line. The guy in the middle can help out by intercepting the pass to the offender that is blocking or by blocking him once the pass is made to defend the goal. You just need to be aware of the blocking, I can sometimes intercept the pass myself when I’m defending on the side but this is dangerous. You just need to understand what the best option is depending on the situation.
7. Don’t boost straight into an opponent when chasing him from behind. Many attackers intentionally brake, causing a chasing defender to ram into them and losing speed as well as giving the opponent a nice boost. Expect to be blocked and evade it before it happens. Even if your opponent won’t block you haven’t lost much at all, and if he does, you’ve gained immensely, now you can easily ram him from the side or just be happy that you caught up with him. When you’re advanced enough and know your opponent well, you can practice anticipating the block, and slowing down exactly when the attacker brakes. The goal is to have soft impact, then boost a little if you haven’t graved the ball already and shoot it in the opposite direction of the opponent, giving you a very quick counter-attack. Don’t forget, hold your mouse down! This works far better on high pinging players who can’t counter your quick reactions than on low pinging players, but either way the reward is huge if you pull it off.
8. Driving inside your goal with the intention of graving the ball away from a bouncer who’s below it by hitting the wall should only be done if you’re exactly sure of what you’re doing. When you’re inside your own goal you’re completely out of the game, so be sure not be there anymore when the ball is in a danger zone again. It’s generally better to cover the passing lanes to the other side of the goal at an early stage instead of being inside your goal.
9. Know your opponent. It is much easier to defend when you know who you are playing. An example of this is playing versus someone like Pomm. He is less likely to pass in most situations (but this depends on who his teammates are) so you can defend slightly differently. Take a bigger chance on defending the run instead of the pass for example. The opposite of this is playing FU. Be ready to intercept a pass when it is safe to do so rather than thinking a player will try to get past you.
The above is pretty vague but will hopefully prove useful to new players. Let’s now look at some screenshots.
How to defend against bouncers
