[Rand]

Latest results from the newest version of FHM 3.0.65
All tests done using sandbox mode, GM unemployed and no settings adjusted besides number of leagues enabled.

At the beginning of the game, with the default database, simmed forward to opening day-
Defencemen rated 3 Star or above: 61
Defencemen rated 4.5 Star or above: 9

Forwards rated 3 Star or above: 178
Forwards rated 4.5 Star or above: 20

Goalies rated 3 Star or above: 29
Goalies rated 4.5 Star or above: 7

Team Cap space
Teams with 10M or less in cap space: 25
Teams with 20M or less in cap space: 30

So the above are the baseline conditions with the starting database. I think that hopefully things would tend to stay within +/- ~25% of these figures aside from the occasional outliers. That would imo leave a fairly large amount of variance but still ensure a league that remained recognizable and plausible.


I ran five separate simulations out to 2045, and checked the database in 2035/2040/2045 in each simulation.

The following numbers are an average of the results from the three time periods checked on each of the five simulations rounded to the nearest even number.

Example- 5 / 7 / 4 / 6 / 9
Would mean that in the first simulation the average number from the three years of 2035/2040/2045 was 5. The second simulation the average number was 7 etc etc.
Please inquire if this isn't clear, I'm doing it this way as otherwise this post would be about 10x as long as it is, and it's already going to be quite long.


Now with all leagues disabled except the AHL/NHL:

Defencemen rated 3 Star or above: 64 / 56 / 61 / 67 / 64
Defencemen rated 4.5 Star or above: 8 / 6 / 9 / 8 / 9

Forwards rated 3 Star or above: 163 / 158 / 170 / 174 / 163
Forwards rated 4.5 Star or above: 22 / 19 / 17 / 15 / 14

Goalies rated 3 Star or above: 13 / 15/ 11 / 10 / 5
Goalies rated 4.5 Star or above: 3 / 5 / 0 / 2 / 0

Team Cap space
Teams with 10M or less in cap space: 20 / 16 / 1 / 12 / 0
Teams with 20M or less in cap space: 30 / 21 / 2 / 19 / 1

So, clearly we can see teams aren't spending anywhere even close to the rate they should. But that was a known bug, so I'll leave that aside.

Defence looks very good. Forwards a tad low. Like with the last version of the game there are no issues at all here with forwards of defence. Entirely plausible results.

Goalies... unfortunately nothing has changed here either. Their still not developing properly. The goaltending talent in the league dries up as the game struggles to develop goalies.

League spending is weird, it's extremely inconsistent from one simulation to the next. One simulation everything will work perfectly and it will be ideal, next... things are much worse then the last version.
Still, on average it looks much better. But I'd advise watching salaries in the early years of any game you start as occasionally I run into sims where almost every team sits 40-50M below the salary cap.
There is definitely something weird with spending that's causing problems on maybe ~20 of games started, while the others look good.

Now, with all leagues enabled.
Again, I ran five separate simulations out to 2045, and checked the database in 2035/2040/2045 in each simulation.

Defencemen rated 3Star or above: 80 / 73 / 138 / 119 / 87
Defencemen rated 4.5 Star or above: 15 / 7 / 15 / 24 / 10

Forwards rated 3 Star or above: 247 / 212 / 292 / 267 / 231
Forwards rated 4.5 Star or above: 39 / 29 / 35 / 27 / 21

Goalies rated 3 Star or above: 22 / 21 / 25 / 20 / 25
Goalies rated 4.5 Star or above: 8 / 7 / 9 / 5 / 8

Team Cap space
Teams with 10M or less in cap space:0 / 18 / 7 / 0 / 21
Teams with 20M or less in cap space: 0 / 29 / 15 / 1 / 25

Nothing new from the last version here either... the goalies look good when all leagues are enabled. Still consistently a bit lower then at the beginning, but nothing to worry too much about.

The status quo also holds with forwards and defence, both positions develop much too well and the league becomes swamped with talent if all leagues are enabled

For spending, again like with all leagues disabled things are very inconsistent. It usually looks good, occasionally I run a simulation where nobody spends more then 40M below the cap and superstars make 4-5M at most.
It's inconsistent. One run everything is perfect, next the salaries are completely broken.
All I can suggest is watching things early on, if things look broken start a new sim and it'll probably have fixed itself. Most sims everything is fine.



Basic synopsis:
No real difference from last version, player development still needs significant work as it's incapable of creating a plausible league long term.
Goaltenders- Develop extremely poorly with only NHL/AHL enabled. Develop a tad low with the full set of leagues enabled.
Defence- Looks good with only NHL/AHL enabled. Develop much too well with all leagues enabled.
Forwards- Looks good with only NHL/AHL enabled. Develop far far too well with all leagues enabled.

Spending- Some sort of bug is causing some simulations to have incredibly low spending. Most simulations look good though. The broken spending happens maybe 20% of the time, so just check things out early on and restart if you see problems. The majority of the time, contract demands and team spending seems to work properly now. Huge improvement over the last version, the development team did great work on this aspect to get things looking much better.