[tomkmb]

Originally Posted by zodiarkh

Rather than adding a bunch of new leagues or features, I hope FHM 11 will focus on improving and fleshing out a lot of current features and systems in the game. Especially with Standard Games and games that play out far into the future.

UI Improvements

• The UI still feels very clunky and slow, especially when simulating 10-20 years or more into the future. When clicking things it takes a second or two sometimes to load the next page. And more specifically on staff and scout hiring pages, as well as other pages that display a lot of players/staff or a lot of information. It can take anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds to load. Optimizing this would make the game so much more smooth and enjoyable to play!

• When right clicking a player, and adding them to the Watch List, it resets the sorting of the overall page. So if I for example sort players by their potential, or by their rank on the scouting page. It resets back to the default every time I add a player to the Watch List. Which can be very cumbersome if someone wants to add a large amount of players to the Watch List, or do any other task that requires you to stay on the same page. It would be great if the sorting order can persist at least until you click into another page! I'm sure this applies to other areas of the game as well.

• Making statistics more readable would be a great improvement. As well as adding statistics like points per game, goals per game, etc. For career and season statistics.

• Display the last 10 games record for each team in the standings screens. Like it does on the NHL website.

• Having the ability to see any teams/players statistics between two dates would be great, or in the last X amount of games.

AI Improvements

• AI GM's often use a large amount of cap space to sign multiple starting or superstar quality goaltenders. Which just doesn't make sense realistically. In general the AI management of cap space needs improvement.

• AI coaches often put their best players on the 2nd or even 3rd line I've noticed.

• Sometimes AI coaches will assign roles to their best offensive players that make no sense. Like defensive roles or being a screener. Like I've seen McDavid as a screener and even a backchecking forward. I've seen it a lot in minor leagues too.

• I've noticed sometimes AI coaches play their young developing players way too little. There will be a player with 5 star potential, and 3-4 star ability who is getting 3rd and 4th line ice time.

• Overall the way the AI builds and constructs teams seems to be lacking in a lot of areas. Improving this would add so much to the immersion and difficulty of the game too.

Draft & Player Development Improvements

• The draft pool after the first 5 years by default needs to be deeper. It feels like after the first 5 years it's way less frequent that you find a steal in the later rounds. Usually it's only a goalie. Sometimes even before the first round is over, the players available are already down to 2 star potential.

• Scouting reports could be more in depth, maybe add a history of scouting reports to view the players growth over time. As well as more detail on what the player projects to be. Do they have potential to be a middle six guy, or a bonified first liner? Is their shot already NHL caliber? Maybe they have the tools to become a producer in the NHL but need a lot of polishing? Adding more context and depth is always a good thing.

• Sometimes the draft picks are bugged and it will display multiple draft picks of the same year, in the trade screen as well. For example it will display pick 1-7 of the 2038 draft, and then display pick 1-7 of the 2038 draft again. Below it.

• The way players develop feels like it could benefit from more depth. Like you just assign training to them and sort of leave it hoping for the best in most cases. There are plenty more factors that contribute to and influence a players development. Mentorship from coaches and more experienced players could be important. It would also give a bit more of a reason to sign an older player. Having more options to positively or negatively effect a players development would be great.

• Player and rating development needs to be more matched around what type of player it is. I constantly see defensemen get an increase to their screening stat, when that has no relevance at all to how they play. No defensemen is gonna be training their screening skills in real life. Same thing goes with Faceoffs.

• Way too often I see a player that is 6'2+ and 210+ lbs and their strength attribute is like a 13 or less. Now it's totally possible a bigger player could be just as strong or less strong than a smaller player. But it happens way too often compared to real life. Having strength correlate to the players size more often would be nice.

• I don't think offensive read and defensive read should diminish with age. A players understanding and ability to read the game doesn't diminish with age. It's more their physical attributes and ability to get into positions that allow them to execute based off of that ability to read the play.

Contracts and Free Agency

• It feels impossible to sign a player for more than 3-5 years. I rarely get the chance to sign a player to even 5 or 6 years. Make it easier to sign players to longer term contracts.

• Add an option to automatically increase the cap every year by a certain percentage.

• PLEASE display the amount the player is asking for and the term on the free agency listing screen. This would save so much time clicking in and out of the contract screen. Especially later in games, when the game becomes extremely clunky due to lag.

• I'd like to see more often players take a pay cut to potentially keep a team together that can win a cup. Or because they like their teammates, or the city, environment, etc.

• Too often I see players with 3rd and 4th line ice time and production ask for 5 or 6 million dollar contracts.

Player Milestones, Announcements & Awards

• During the players of the month announcement, maybe show the stats of that player during the month in the announcement. Actually I'd love a way to see the stats of a player during any month. Having snapshots of a players performance during a specific period would be a great way to make adjustments or just tell a bit of a story of a players career.

• Have milestones be announced when a player moves up a position in the all time points, goals, assists, etc lists.

• Another thing with milestones is that they don't feel very important, it's just a little message you see along with the 50 other messages you get per day.

• It would be awesome to make the race for the Hart, Art Ross, Rocket, etc more interesting. Give it more importance throughout the season. Have a few announcements here and there, especially if it's a close race. If a player started off slow and stormed back into the conversation. Have that be a big story piece of the year. Finding more ways to incorporate a story line or narrative really adds to the immersion.

• Sometimes the nominees and winners of the awards make no sense at all. A few times I've had a goalie that led the league in every major statistical category not even be nominated for the Vezina. Maybe more in depth statistics should be taken into account for the nominees and winner, or the way they are weighted needs to be re-evaluated.

• Hall of Fame inductions are sometimes a little wonky with who gets in first. I've seen guys who have no career achievements other than a lot of points get voted in over guys with multiple awards and cups.

• Adding more context to announcements would be great. Like if someone is on a point, goal or assist streak. Tell me how it compares and ranks to their own streaks in the past. Or how it ranks compared to streaks within the franchise and the NHL overall.

Line Management & Tactics

• I would love for a way to be able to manage players tendencies depending on which line or situation they are in. Like being more aggressive in attacking and shooting on the powerplay vs playing more balanced in their default 5v5 lineup. In the tactical tendencies screen, there could be a drop down menu for each player that says "5v5" "Power Play "Shorthanded". Or something similar to that effect. Having more control and fine tuning in this area of the game would be great.

• Being able to assign different roles depending on the line the player is on would be great.

• PLEASE add the option to save tactics and tactical tendencies. Into like a favourites list or something. Similar to how it is with lineups. That would save so much time.

Other Improvements & Fixes

• Generally adding more customization to the game in commissioner mode. Like changing the generated player quality for each country is great. But I'd like to be able to change way more than that. Everything as much as possible should be customizable.

• The ability to change job ratings for staff and yourself. I play as GM/Head Coach and it's annoying to constantly see my coaching rating at 12-15 and never see it improve. I should be able to just set it higher or see it grow over time.

• Expanding on the above point, the ability to edit the preferences of staff other than just the Offensive Preference and Physical Preference. Being able to edit the other tendencies would be great.

• Ability to turn a retired player into a coach, or to adjust how often a retired player becomes a coach.

Nice one man, thorough and detailed - great points!