New for FHM9

[jcard]

Originally Posted by renojedi

I play all of my team's games in the 2D simulator so I am really interested to know how scoring is looking using the 2D simulator.

Last season, several of us had issues with goal totals being too high for the top guys in the 2D simulator with default settings...70-80 was not uncommon for the top 3-5 guys at the end of the year.

I know you said on-ice decisions won't have as big of an effect on goals as last year for the teams we manage. The problem was still with the other teams' top players scoring too many goals in the 2D simulator as discussed here:

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...light=renojedi

Has this been fixed?

Agree with you that the issues would seem to require something more than dial tweaking. For example, I decided to test run a simple NHL-only custom league basically in default set-up. All summed in 2D. First year, Matthews: 93 goals. Other issues like Panarin with a very realistic 99 points, but achieved with a 44 goal / 55 assist balance; Kreisler, on the other hand, had about 50% more assists than goals. Possible culprits: player model (e.g., too many elite attributes for elite players), roster usage (e.g., over-loaded top lines), in-game AI coaching (e.g., tactical decisions and adaptability), others? Hopefully my doubts will be proven to be without warrant.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by renojedi

Will the salary cap evolve over time or is does it stay the same each season as in previous versions of the game?

Unlikely; short answer is that it causes far more problems that it's worth. People's perceptions of appropriate salaries are heavily rooted in the present (and recent past); if there's, say, a 5% average annual increase in salaries, after 20 years in you're looking at average players making $8m+ a year, which just looks wrong. We tried it, got a bunch of complaints along those lines, and won't make that mistake again. It's also a lot easier to keep the overall financial picture stable when everything remains set to a single frame of reference.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by boscoJJ

is Iron Curtain for Custom coming in future updates?

No immediate plans for it, but I think it may be relatively easy to do, assuming you don't want flexible definitions/dates for the Iron Curtain.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by TheAdamBn

Yikes.. Dropping the same day as the latest Football Manager game. That could lead to some tough choices for some

As someone that usually watches the games and not sim over them, I love the fact that the highlight repeats have been fixed. That bugged me so much in 8

Sadly its only available to wishlist on Steam and no preorder or pricing available there. I did miss the reveal stream so dont know if pricing has been mentioned.

What I would love to see more of though is customisation. Reskinning the game menus for eras or teams would probably take the game to a new level. Just look at all the skins made yearly for FM

US$39.99, 10% off during release week. We did pre-orders once on Steam and got badly screwed over when Steam's promotional placement algorithms apparently didn't take presales into account when determining how much attention to give us during release week. That cost us a lot of exposure and sales, so we're not anxious to do it again.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Simmo13

Will there be the option to edit/add news stories as in OOTP.....or perhaps in a later patch?

No immediate plans to add it, we'd need to take a look at exactly what'd be involved, since I think the OOTP and FHM news systems, despite similar outward appearances, have diverged quite a bit over the last decade.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by renojedi

I play all of my team's games in the 2D simulator so I am really interested to know how scoring is looking using the 2D simulator.

Last season, several of us had issues with goal totals being too high for the top guys in the 2D simulator with default settings...70-80 was not uncommon for the top 3-5 guys at the end of the year.

I know you said on-ice decisions won't have as big of an effect on goals as last year for the teams we manage. The problem was still with the other teams' top players scoring too many goals in the 2D simulator as discussed here:

Has this been fixed?

I adjusting 2D to keep scoring in line whenever we make adjustments to it, so it's perpetually being adjusted. Last 2D full season test had one player at 60+ goals, none at 70+, which was the same as the NHL last year.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by skirmish

Tactics feedback! From what I can see in the reveal vid, that alone will make 9 worth the price. The harmony system is a bonus but also brilliant. Anything that lets us get more into our teams!

Really appreciate the improvements to custom games, every little fix helps. I am obliged to ask about my main two bugbears, though: any change to farm/junior leagues inheriting the main league's player nationalities or the lack of multilingualism among European players? I keep hoping as it would mean shaving off hours of painful editing time. In any case, I'm assuming FHM 8 saves are compatible? Not sure I'm ready to put the time into setting up a custom game from scratch again.

FHM8 saves can be imported, yes. No changes to the language generation for European players or the farm/junior nationalities situation (but more nationality customization for player generation in custom games is near the top of the to-do list now.)

One thing to watch out for in imported FHM8 saves: we had to break the old all-star game data in FHM8 standard game saves, so if you want an NHL all-star game you'll need to re-enable it manually via league edit on July 1 at the start of the game.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Risk2014

Originally Posted by JeffR
In-game feedback responses yes, on-ice decisions no - that's still on the wish list, but not implemented yet; you would need to play in multiplayer and add a second GM controlling the minor league team to do that.

Oh Wow okay. Now can you have 3 multi-player GMs running NHL/AHL/ECHL at the same time? One game?

So I would be Toronto Maple Leafs GM, Toronto Marlies and Growlers GM.

My bad, I was wrong there - we'd had playability for the AHL/ECHL in online leagues on the to-do list for 9, but it didn't work out. Still hoping to get it into an update.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by alko

Is there finally an overwiev table for individual Trophies? Like who won most Hart Trophies, Art Ross...?

How is it with Russia and Belarus? Are they now ignored from WCH and OG?

There's a list of past award winners in the league history, but not a separate leaderboard of award wins by players.

Russia/Belarus are out of international play at the start of the game and return in 2025 (just a guess on our part as to when that'll happen.) There are also some additional mechanics (on top of what we added in the later updates last year) to make western players a little less likely to appear in Russian leagues.

[boscoJJ]

Originally Posted by JeffR

No immediate plans for it, but I think it may be relatively easy to do, assuming you don't want flexible definitions/dates for the Iron Curtain.

yeah,I want the Iron Curtain to be as in Historical Mode in Custom

[skirmish]

Originally Posted by JeffR

FHM8 saves can be imported, yes. No changes to the language generation for European players or the farm/junior nationalities situation (but more nationality customization for player generation in custom games is near the top of the to-do list now.)

One thing to watch out for in imported FHM8 saves: we had to break the old all-star game data in FHM8 standard game saves, so if you want an NHL all-star game you'll need to re-enable it manually via league edit on July 1 at the start of the game.

Thanks Jeff. Glad to hear changes to nationalities generation is nearing the top of the list. Shame about the languages thing but I get that it isn't a priority given it only arises in specific circumstances. It's just that isolation is a real pain when playing a pan-European league, which isn't entirely realistic given that many players would in reality have some level of English ability. I've developed my own table of second language probabilities for relevant European countries but it's still a nightmare to edit the players.

[Goalie39]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Alaska-Anchorage and Lindenwood are in, but Stonehill (and Robert Morris, whose program is apparently returning) are playing schedules that are almost entirely against Division III schools this season, so we couldn't make them work. So 61 playable teams.

Awesome, Thanks Jeff!


Makes sense, as i did look at the schedule of Stonehill and they are playing mostly DIII teams this season.



I do love the challenge of taking on a brand new program like Lindenwood and seeing how it will shape out over a few seasons.

[TheAdamBn]

Originally Posted by JeffR

US$39.99, 10% off during release week. We did pre-orders once on Steam and got badly screwed over when Steam's promotional placement algorithms apparently didn't take presales into account when determining how much attention to give us during release week. That cost us a lot of exposure and sales, so we're not anxious to do it again.

Thanks Jeff. Sucks to hear about Steam but totally get it.

Luckily (in a way) the 8th is my work from the office day so will have something to occupy me until it drops

[northjersey]

Originally Posted by JeffR

US$39.99, 10% off during release week. We did pre-orders once on Steam and got badly screwed over when Steam's promotional placement algorithms apparently didn't take presales into account when determining how much attention to give us during release week. That cost us a lot of exposure and sales, so we're not anxious to do it again.

so Jeff, anyway to preorder the game starting this weekend, from the OOTP site? I know it comes out on Tuesday

[mjcarr74]

Any new audio addons break in play music ect...?

[snarls200]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Leagues aren't editable/expandable (way too much stuff that could get easily broken by tinkering with team numbers and league structures in the college league), teams are editable. So you could move a team to Canada; I can't think of any unexpected consequences to that offhand, since there aren't any foreign player rules, but it's not something that's had much testing.

Hopefully that function if not in a patch can be added in next few games

[jameslacy8]

Being able to make multiple selections at once....especially in areas of scouting to add them to watch list or short list...and other areas would be amazing. Would cut down so much tedious and mind-numbing clicking.

[Goalie39]

Originally Posted by snarls200

Hopefully that function if not in a patch can be added in next few games

I can only imagine how hard of a task that will be. College Hockey is very complicated. I know this from experience. Each Team creates their own schedule. Most teams schedule is really 2 different schedules combined into one schedule. If they are in a conference, they create their conference schedule with conference teams first, then they have to create the non-conference schedule. Each conference runs like a league inside of a league. Lots of things that could break in the game if you made it customizable. A more realistic hope is for college hockey to be added in the custom game.


Kudos to the FHM team for building this into the game. This had to be a heavy lift. OOTP Baseball fans have wanted real College Baseball for years and so far it hasn't been happened, but we got it in Hockey!


For me, this has sparked instant excitement for FHM 9.

[Spartacus70]

What do you mean by AHL is editable in Custom game? We will have more editing options?


And do we have the possibility to create a NCAA in custom game?

[beatle]

Making it harder to trade for 1st round draft picks? It's almost impossible to do that now. I play mostly historical games and unable to make a reasonable trade with AI for a top 5 pick unlike the real NHL historical league. For example, to make my point, I just offered, B. Orr and P. Esposito to Oakland in 1967 for their # 1 pick. Note two five-star players. I than added Ted Green a 3.5 player. No way response again and got that same message saying, "not willing to move a high draft pick that cheaply".

I next added Ken Hodge 3 stars/ 3.5 potential. Again, I got the No Way response! I could go on and on but will stop here with the trade options because no one would make the above deal anyways.

I really enjoy the game and have purchased every game since version 4, but this component is broken. If this was an on-line league B. Orr would cost the other team more than a first-round draft pick alone, never mind adding Esposito and the other 2 players. I Would ask Jeff to take a second look at making trades for #1 picks harder and make it more realistic as my above trade scenario points out. Thanks for your consideration.