Game Status (April 20)

[JeffR]

Time for an update, it's been a while since I've done one of these.

Everything is on track so far for getting back to the regular Wednesday updates next week. That includes the new selectable league setup. So, instead of having so many playable leagues that it bogs your game down, you'll be able to just the ones you want (with one limitation: the highest-level league in the game and its top farm league - i.e. the NHL and AHL in the default database - will always have to be playable.) If you've played a historical game, you know how much faster a single-league game plays. That'll also eliminate the need for us to hold off on adding playable leagues (I'd been trying to avoid that because the game was too slow already), so we may have some new ones this coming week or next - I won't say which, exactly, as I want to talk to the researchers about it first.

Coming along with that will be a significant upgrade to the way players move around non-playable leagues, so switching a league to that setting won't make it completely static in terms of player movement. That'll let players have realistic career progression and will be the first step to implementing a better player generation model.

And here's where it gets complicated, and where a big part of the recent delays have happened. Now, the easiest way to handle that sort of movement is just to hardcode specific progression from league to league - e.g., every player in the BCHL moves to a US college when he's too old to play junior. But that runs contrary to the moddable approach we want to take with the game - if we start hardcoding that stuff, you can't change it, and that's not how we want to do things: if you want to try editing in every Junior B league in Canada and making them playable, I think you should be able to do that without breaking the game.

So what we've done is made the whole non-playable transaction system work at the team level: every team will individually specify where its players go if they become too good, old, or bad to continue playing there (and there's also a chance of random movement to simulate trades and free agency.) Graduating NCAA players, for example, have several different possible destinations if they're not drafted or signed by a team in a playable league, but those vary significantly depending on their team - someone playing at Harvard is more likely to quit hockey entirely rather than make minimum wage in the low minors, teams in the northeast are a little more likely to have their players wind up in the Federal League, WCHA teams send a few more to the Central League, and so on.

Likewise, teams can restrict which players come to them. Continuing the NCAA example, the Army and Air Force teams will only take American players, and you could have a team like the University of Minnesota limit its recruits to one state or a particular region.

Getting all the data in to make that possible isn't a quick and easy job, though - we're talking about data entry for hundreds of teams in dozens of leagues, not to mention the time it takes to figure out exactly what that data should be. I've spent most of my time for the last couple of weeks on it and I'm just now at the point where it's nearly ready to go. It'll be a welcome relief once it's done, but it'll also make the game much more "alive", so I think it's worth the effort.

In other news, the Mac version is on target as well: Sebastian's expecting to have a testable build next week, so we've added a few new testers today in preparation for having a look at that. Barring any disasters, we'll be ready to go with it on the May 1 target (and since that's a Wednesday, we may be a little slower with the data update that day if there are any issues with getting it ready for purchase.)

As for other concerns: crashes and player valuation/trading remain at the top of the list. Regarding crashes, please continue sending your crash-related savegames in, those are helpful. As for making the AI value its players properly, that isn't going to be something that happens overnight, but we'll continue to make incremental improvements there. I realize that's a particular source of frustration now, but I don't want to lead anyone to think we're going to make a change one week and the AI will suddenly be brilliant. That isn't to say we're anywhere close to what I'd consider acceptable AI roster handling in a release version, just a warning that it'll get better in stages that may not be really obvious from week to week - AI teams will stop trading for three starting goalies or refusing to move a draft pick higher than the fifth round, or bottom-pair defencemen won't ask for $6 million a year and then accept $600,000 after a couple of weeks of free agency.

This is getting a bit long-winded, so I'll cut it off there, although in closing I'll add that plenty of things not mentioned above are also getting addressed in the usual day-to-day bugfixing.

[Rob316]

Great news indeed!

I'm hoping one of the "things" being adjusted that wasn't mentioned is the fighting engine =) Can't fathom to have Semin dropping the gloves and leading the league with Malkin. lol

[BTerran]

That all sounds like really great news. Thank you for the update

One thing I'm wondering: By making where a player will likely progress/regress to determined on a team-by-team level, will you be eventually opening the door for the player to be able to edit that information? For example, if I wanted to make Harvard graduates more likely to choose a low-level minor league over retirement, will that be possible? Or if I wanted to create a new league/team, will I be able to add in my own information for where those players might eventually go?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Rob316

Great news indeed!

I'm hoping one of the "things" being adjusted that wasn't mentioned is the fighting engine =) Can't fathom to have Semin dropping the gloves and leading the league with Malkin. lol

That one's just a matter of getting all the fighting (and other penalty-related) attributes entered correctly. It looks like about 20% of NHLers have their individual fighting attributes set so far, so I suspect Mike is partway through entering those and that'll get done fairly soon.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by BTerran

That all sounds like really great news. Thank you for the update

One thing I'm wondering: By making where a player will likely progress/regress to determined on a team-by-team level, will you be eventually opening the door for the player to be able to edit that information? For example, if I wanted to make Harvard graduates more likely to choose a low-level minor league over retirement, will that be possible? Or if I wanted to create a new league/team, will I be able to add in my own information for where those players might eventually go?

Yup, that's exactly why we're doing it this way, so it's customization-friendly. That's good for both user-made mods and our own internal database work, since the whole system can be restructured just by changing the data. If a new Junior A league sprang up tomorrow, it'd just be a matter of adding it in the database, I wouldn't need to go to Malte and ask him to fix a bunch of hardcoded stuff - or, if a user wanted to turn the USHL into a major junior league on the model of the CHL leagues, that would be possible because everything necessary to do that will be editable and not hidden away in the game code.

[geckon]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Yup, that's exactly why we're doing it this way, so it's customization-friendly. That's good for both user-made mods and our own internal database work, since the whole system can be restructured just by changing the data. If a new Junior A league sprang up tomorrow, it'd just be a matter of adding it in the database, I wouldn't need to go to Malte and ask him to fix a bunch of hardcoded stuff - or, if a user wanted to turn the USHL into a major junior league on the model of the CHL leagues, that would be possible because everything necessary to do that will be editable and not hidden away in the game code.

That's what I consider one of the strongest sides about FHM. The less hard-coded things the better, thanks for that!

[yzerwing]

Originally Posted by geckon

That's what I consider one of the strongest sides about FHM. The less hard-coded things the better, thanks for that!

Agree with this!

[gosens]

Thanks for this update. It sounds like this big step will make it much easier for the team to implement features for fictional leagues.

I understand that may be down the list a little bit, but my ultimate hockey sim would have the ability to set up my own custom league with however many teams I want, with whatever teams and locations, set my playoff format, and control expansion over time, etc.; to maybe use historical players starting in year x; maybe I to start with the original 6 and continue without expansion, or just go with fictional players all the way; etc. Basically a sandbox mode with the bonus of having historical players available. Or freeing up players of any era (or mixing up their start years) and having a fantasy draft for an all-time-greats league.

There would have to be some sacrifices in terms of players outside the league and their career progression etc. but honestly in that mode I think only the custom league's stats (and maybe, the direct farm teams) would be of interest. So turning off most of the other leagues reduces the complexity of fictional leagues.

Is there any update on timing for this and am I correct in suggesting this could be step towards that?

thanks

[Aliean]

any chance that you will implement 0-100 rating system for players instead of the 0-20 as i think 0-100 rating system is better and more accurate then the 0-20.and it will better distinguish all the players

[Aliean]

Originally Posted by Aliean

any chance that you will implement 0-100 rating system for players instead of the 0-20 as i think 0-100 rating system is better and more accurate then the 0-20.and it will better distinguish all the players

any answer on this?

[tcblcommish]

That was answered before in another thread. If I remember correctly, this will be implemented but at a much later date

[erikthered]

Originally Posted by Aliean

any chance that you will implement 0-100 rating system for players instead of the 0-20 as i think 0-100 rating system is better and more accurate then the 0-20.and it will better distinguish all the players

I actually like a 20 point scale. It's hard to explain exactly why, but I feel like trying to decide whether Crosby should have a 94 stickhandling versus 95 stickhandling is a bit too picky, while the proportionally larger gaps provided by smaller rating scales give a more human representation and interpretation to a person's skill level in a certain aspect of the sport.

[yzerwing]

Originally Posted by erikthered

I actually like a 20 point scale. It's hard to explain exactly why, but I feel like trying to decide whether Crosby should have a 94 stickhandling versus 95 stickhandling is a bit too picky, while the proportionally larger gaps provided by smaller rating scales give a more human representation and interpretation to a person's skill level in a certain aspect of the sport.

I understand your reasoning, but I think with so many players, a larger scale works better, as with a smaller scale you have more mediocre players looking close to better players.

[tcblcommish]

I am sure it will be an option. In ootp, there is 4 or 5 options so I am sure that will be here too

[Aliean]

thanks guys for the answers.this is great news.and as yzerwing said thats the only reason i want a higher scale but its up to personal preference

[jbsnadb]

Don't forget, just because you see a 1-20 scale, does not mean that there are not variations and nuance behind the scenes.

[erikthered]

Originally Posted by yzerwing

I understand your reasoning, but I think with so many players, a larger scale works better, as with a smaller scale you have more mediocre players looking close to better players.

It's all about proportionality, not raw numbers. The difference between 15 and 16 on a 20 point scale would be proportional to the difference between 75 and 80 on a 100 point scale. Similarly, the difference between 10 and 15 would be the difference between 50 and 75.

And I know that the displayed number doesn't necessarily reflect the actual value "behind the scenes," but that's why I like it. There's a little bit of vagueness that reflects real-life valuation of a player's skills. If an extremely precise number is given, it takes out some of the challenge of actually GMing and playing the game.

But yeah, in the end, it's personal preference.

[Stinson]

Originally Posted by tcblcommish

I am sure it will be an option. In ootp, there is 4 or 5 options so I am sure that will be here too

To give everyone an idea, OOTP has the following options for displaying player ratings:

* 1 to 5
* 1 to 10
* 1 to 20
* 1 to 100
* 2 to 8
* 20 to 80
* None displayed
* Stars (for overall and potential ratings only)

As long as "None displayed" is an option in FHM, I'll be happy

[dave1927p]

Originally Posted by Stinson

To give everyone an idea, OOTP has the following options for displaying player ratings:

* 1 to 5
* 1 to 10
* 1 to 20
* 1 to 100
* 2 to 8
* 20 to 80
* None displayed
* Stars (for overall and potential ratings only)

As long as "None displayed" is an option in FHM, I'll be happy

But for overall ratings it's only 20-80 or stars. Not quite sure why it's that range but i'm sure there's a reason. I would like to see ovr ratings out of 100 but then again the averages would be too high.

[Anemic_royaltea]

well, Crosby/Gretzky/Oates/Forsberg/Clarke should probably have 20+ playmaking, but I understand not wanting to tax the engine with outliers just yet. (Sanity check skills? Pah!)