In this respect I'm with the other guys who replied. Training isn't difficult (the way it is setup now) because you need to play a guy 48 mins at one position. The problem is training AND trying to win games. In order to do that you absolutely need good GS and high Enth, it's a pre-requisite.
As Jokeru mentioned, you know that all bot games are a win and normally a large win because they have 1 Enth, bad players and you can also GDP them. So you know you can use GDP and Take It Easy and you will still have garbage time every time you play a bot. That helps managing minutes immensely because minutes will break differently between starter/backup (more evenly) than in tight games. The scrimmage is the same, if you have a good enough team (not your case as D4 team, but it's good to remember for when you will go up the ranks): choose your opponents wisely, get garbage time. The difference from 7.0 Game Shape and 8.0 Game Shape is actually significant, your players will be as effective as players with more skills and worse GS.
Then Enth. There is no point in Normalling a bot. There is also no point in Normalling or Crunching a MUCH better team, especially on the road, unless there are other considerations (eg you realise your opponent does manage minutes properly, you see he played all his staters heavy minutes on the Saturday game and he has a winnable game in the cup. In this case it is possible that the manager will spare his starters for the cup, so I would actually play a good team against him and maybe Normal if I thought I wasn't good enough to beat his second string players with a TIE).
So what happen is: TIE all bots, TIE all definitely unwinnable games, Normal or Crunch the ones you can win, the ones where the difference between you and your opponent isn't massive. Also it goes without saying that if you can, you should reduce training on the day you play a competitive game. So if you train 5 players, train 4 guys when you know the game will be a blowout either way and keep the best trainee for when you play the tight game, so you will have 4 starters, 4 backups and 1 trainee playing. If you train 3 players, 1-position training, then play the best player in the competitive game or if you have multiple games, play him in the game you are more likely to win. Obviously you should do all this trying to get around 60 minutes per player (high stamina goes better with more than 60, very low stamina probably has a sweet spot for fewer minutes), so that you keep GS high.
Last edited by Lemonshine at 8/17/2017 5:39:57 PM