Disappointed
 

So I dropped $40 yesterday to purchase FHM 4. I purchased FHM 3 about a year ago, and I was hesitant about this year's iteration of the game because of all the shortcomings of last year's game. But whatever, I consider the $40 a donation to an organization that I have supported through the years and who I hope continues to develop this into something better.

Let me start by saying that I have been playing OOTP for a very long time (since it was Season Ticket Baseball on the CD-ROM). Though I love baseball, I'm a much bigger hockey fan. So I was ecstatic about the news of a new hockey sim from the same developers.

Man, have I been disappointed though. FHM continues to be no where close to as in depth as the OOTP series. In OOTP, you can modify every little singular detail of the game. In FHM, it seems that you can adjust some high-level details, but that's about it.

For instance, if I want to start a custom league, with a custom structure, then I need full control over these details. Or else the output is going to be unrealistic. If I have a 16 team league with a 50 game schedule per team, then I need to be able to modify player salary ranges to accommodate for a shorter season, or else the output is going to be very unrealistic. Also, as far as I can tell, you can't even change the logos for your custom teams? If that's true, that's just silly.

OOTP has spoiled me with the level of detail it allows you to edit in your custom leagues. I feel like with FHM, unless you're playing a Standard NHL league game, it just doesn't make sense to get this game. Especially if you want to modify details that allow a more realistic output each season.

OOTP - now on version 18
FHM - now on version 4

How does OOTP 4 compare to OOTP 18?

While I agree there is a lot of "catching up" to do, I don't buy into this at all..

You can't compare versions.. OOTP started at time where they were the first to do a lot of things.. FHM has the advantage of already seeing what's on the market, and what works. They can take inspiration from OOTP. Perhaps it comes down to man power and budget, but if they had a good size team they could close the gap pretty quickly between OOTP and FHM.

Yeah, it's not really fair to compare the two games, simply because they are developed within the same company. They don't have the same development teams and probably not the same staffing and or budget. FHM4 definitely has a way to go to be on the same level the OOTP, but it's on the right path.

Its not a fair comparison at all. Why do people think that because the game in OOTPB is set the way it is that it would translate over to the game of hockey. The game of baseball runs off of a completely different engine, the rules of roster management is way different and just the whole structure of the league is different. Just because OOTPB has it means nothing when it comes over to FHM because they have to recode everything which probably takes more time than doing it from scratch. I wish people would stop comparing them because it makes no sense to do so.

Yet, they charge $40 for a game that isn’t nearly as in depth or of the same quality as OOTP. IMO, the game shouldn’t have been released until it was at least as customizable as you’d expect from this development team.

...and that analysis they conducted and posted about here on the boards had as a result that most players prefer real-life seasons over customized leagues...

So it's not worth $40 to you based on your experience with OOTPB. Man, if I judged games like this no RPG would be worth it's asking price based on my experience with Divinity Original Sin 2 :laugh: Your ciriticisms are still valid though and likely taken seriously by the developers.

If OOTP has been so sucessful for so long, they must be doing something right. Wouldn't it make sense to take a look at what they're doing and copy that?

Look, while baseball and hockey may be two differnet sports, running a franchise or a league is pretty much the same. You align divisions, set up a playoffs, a schedule, set a budget based on the amount of tickets you expect to sell...

I'm not a baseball fan, so never played OOTP, but from what I've heard and seen, the historical and custom leagues are way ahead of FHM. The FHM team should be confering with the OOTP team to see how to implement all this, seeing what kind of code they used, how they worked it into the existing framework. You have tons of people saying I want to love this game, but here's what's hurting that. But I see time and again the team glazing over the sugesstion forum and putting in stuff nobody asked for. (Goalie heat ratings, a confusing startegy system, crowd noise sound effects. Seriously, you put more effeort into sound fx than re-implementing the ability to change divisonal lineup from FHM 1 that everyone keeps asking for?)

I'm sorry for the rant. when FHM 1 was announced, I said this was the hockey sim I've always wanted. But I've yet to see it. And every year we're asked to pony uo $40 to support the game in the hopes that maybe in several years we'll get the game we want. :(

While I'm sure the two teams are in communication about ideas, I'm also pretty sure it's not as easy as swapping coding. There are likely lots of compatibility tests on top of the time it takes to code something into the game.

We aren't "expected" to do anything other than offer our thoughts on what bugs exist and what we would like to see in the game. Buying the game is something that is completely up to you after you research your purchasing decision.

This is the comments I just don't understand. Do you not think that FHM would just simply use the existing game that OOTPB has if they could and just swapout the baseball for hockey if they could?

Baseball and hockey are very very different games. Hockey players and baseball players use different ratings. The sim engine uses a whole different engine. Game management is different due to different things like roster management, chemistry and loads of other things that baseball does not have. There are so many variables that have to be changed from the game of baseball to the game of hockey that just swapping out stuff from the baseball version and replacing it into hockey just wouldn't work. While roster building might be fundamentally the same, the game and recreating the AI to do so is not.

Each step, each variable has to be coded and recoded to make the hokey version work so just because the baseball game is 18 versions in, the hockey game is 4. It's not the same, never will be due to having to code everything. Only games you can compare FHM4 with really is either EHM or FHM previous version. In this regard, FHM 4 is advanced in many ways because it's grown from 3 and it has way more customization than EHM

I think the OOTP affiliation can be seen both as a blessing and as a curse by the FHM team. I mean, I understand that people can expect FHM to be OOTP on ice because of that affiliation, but as some have said, hockey and baseball are completely different sports and FHM is not OOTP, just like Football Manager is not OOTP. I don't think people would compare FHM to OOTP if it was published by someone else. I prefer to compare it to EHM, because that's the other big hockey sim on the market and since FHM3, I'm having more fun with FHM than EHM.

Also, Sebastian has clearly said in the past that the main focus of FHM is the standard game, not the historical or the fictional modes. Still, it's nice to have them even though they're not perfect. And to answer one of the OP questions, yes, you can change your custom teams and leagues logos. I think it's explained in the manual, but I haven't checked in a while.

The bolded is definitely possible you just don't do it in game you do it outside of the game in the files of the league. You can change logos, jerseys and even the background for the team. Player salaries aren't at that level as far as I know. Though they might be based off of the salary cap you choose.

Part of what makes OOTP so great and sets it apart from all the other sports sim games is the customizability of the game and the level of detail you can change. As someone who primarily plays custom leagues, this comment comes as a great disappointment to me. When you have such a great platform as OOTP at your disposal to create this game, and then you omit many of the features, and then charge the same price as OOTP, you are slapping your fans in the face.

FHM, in my opinion, is a game for playing a standard NHL sim in present day. Personally, if that remains the case, I’d just stick with EA’s NHL series, because you can do so much more in that game.

For what it’s worth, I hope the developers read this. You no longer get to freely ride the coattails of OOTP’s success. You’ve lost my loyalty to this series until you implement the same customizability as OOTP. I will no longer be spending my hard earned money on a game that is only a fraction of what it should and could be based on the resources you have a available to you with OOTP. After four iterations of this game, there are no excuses for why the only major improvements year over year are roster updates and minor game features.

Alright, you've had your say. If you want to request a refund, as always, we'll be happy to give you your money back; submit a support ticket if you'd like to do that. But you seem to be wilfully ignoring the improvements we've made, and continue to make, to custom mode this year, as well as the other OOTP features we've added. While I'm sure there are a few people who'd be happy to continue pointing that out to you, this thread isn't headed anywhere constructive, so I think we're done here.