Coming in Late: First Impressions After One Season

[jslmsca]

Sorry for the length of this post. As someone who has played hockey sims back to the days of Hockey League Simulator 2 from Bethesda Softworks, I’m thrilled to see the development of FHM and want it to succeed like OOTP. I realize that many of these issues have probably been brought up already as I’m coming in late but I usually only dive into a game after a couple patches have been released. Here is some feedback after finishing one season.


GUI/Navigation

There should be a keyboard shortcut to simulate the current day (such as the space bar in Football Manager). Currently, you have to click 'Play' and then 'FinishToday'. Ctrl-S for saving would be nice as well.

You should be able to view a scout's profile in the 'Scouting' screen without having to navigate away to the 'Personnel' screen.

The 'Personnel' screen should dynamically adjust to be able to see all staff without having to use the scroll bar. I want to be able to see all my staff more frequently than I need to see all staff without jobs.

When I simulate the current day from the NHL Schedule screen, the screen automatically forwards to the next day after the simulation is complete. I then have to navigate backwards to see the scores and results of the simulation. If I keep the screen on the previous day and then simulate, the schedule will move forward to the appropriate day. A bit awkward.

The box score/game report needs work. Each section (Period 1 Summary, Penalty Summary, etc.) should automatically show all the information. Right now, if it is a long list, some of it is hidden and you have to scroll in between each section. This is sometimes difficult since the scroll will actually scroll the entire screen rather than the individual summary. In fact, you can scroll in each section even if it only contains a couple items. Just a plain, flat look showing all information would suffice where scrolling is only relevant to the entire page.

You cannot see the injuries on your minor league squad by going to the injury list. Instead you have to go to your 'Protected List'.

I should be able to remove a player or pick from a trade any time I get to the trading interface, not just from Team Menu > Trade Player(s).


Messaging

After the day is simulated, there is no notification of any news. You need to navigate to the league news or Manager Home Screen to see what has happened. It would be nice to be notified of the ‘PM’ and taken to the appropriate screen,or having some obvious visual cue that I have mail waiting.

League news informs a player is injured without mentioning the team for which he plays.

It would be nice to be informed of injuries to my prospects. I had a goalie prospect out for 11 months and didn’t know about it until I checked my minor league roster and realized he disappeared.


Statistics

The Team Stats has Team Assists and Assists/Game. Have you ever seen these in real life Team Statistics reports for the NHL? Meanwhile, Team Goals Against Average is missing. I have to switch to the Standings screen to get a league-wide sense of where my team sits with respect to Goals Against which is less than ideal since nothing is sortable.

The filter needs to be improved. There’s no way for me to sort by rookies, for example.

Career stats and stats on player cards are just awful. Who thought combined totals across every league was a good idea? Seriously. I want to see NHL totals or totals from a specific league.

The terminology for the NHL Rankings in the Team Home screen seems off. “Goals Against Powerplay”? Does this mean “PP Goals Allowed?” Or does “Goals Against SH” mean “PP Goals Allowed?” I’m also not sure what PP and SH “Chances” are supposed to be. Is this the amount of penalties my team has taken? Right now they both stay at 0 for the entire year.

For those of us not familiar with the advanced stats on the player card, it would be nice if there was a popup that would provide some explanation.


Players

An injured player should not have a fitness of 100% while they are recovering. This goes for both players on IR and injured but able to play. It’s not clear if there is a concept of “rust” or “game shape” implemented but that would be a nice touch. If it is implemented, there should be some visual cue that a player is out of game shape.

Personal Details on a player card should have draft history or ‘undrafted’ if the player was never drafted. It’s a nice touch that is currently buried elsewhere.

There should be a player search screen where I can filter by attributes and other criteria. I’m having a hard time targeting a player for trade otherwise.

On the player card, it would be nice to see a game-by-game summary like in Football Manager. Minimally, there should be a quick way to see a player’s performance over the last five games. This would help in determining lineup changes.

After a soon-to-be UFA signs a contract extension with his current team, his player card should be updated with the new contract status so that it doesn’t still say UFA.

It would be nice to compare two players to get a better sense on their attribute differences.

It’s unrealistic to have players who are in daily lineups to always be at 100% fitness. It seems only goaltenders have their condition change after a game.


Teams

It would be nice to have a 'Team Needs' screen to set the type of players you're looking for and the position team management is currently in (win now, rebuild, favour veterans, draft picks, etc.).

It would be nice to see a list of pending trade offers for my team, maybe under the Transactions window. Right now, once I submit a trade, it disappears. I've gone several days without a response so I have no idea if it's being considered or rejected. Every day I need to check the league news to see if the other team has responded.

The team banner currently shows the team’s record and points. It would be nice if it also said its position (i.e., 5th in the Western Conference, 8th Overall).

I should be able to see a team’s draft picks without having to go to the trade screen. I also want to be able to see a historical draft screen. EHM's implementation was quite good.


Trades

There is no way to see who needs a specific position league-wide. I have to go to propose a trade for a team before I get information on where they are weak. If I want to trade a LW, I should be able to quickly see who needs one.

It would make trades easier if I could know which players on my squad the other team has absolutely no interest in. Right now, it all seems like trial-and-error and I have to wait three days to find out. As soon as I add a player to the deal, I should get instant notification “We have no interest in Player X.”

There should be an indication of untouchable status so I don’t waste time trying to pry a high-end prospect or high-end player from another team.


Injuries

I have no proof but it feels that the injury rate is a tad high, especially with a lot of long term injuries; month long separated shoulders in practice seems off. In my game, the NHL saw two career ending injuries from getting a concussion while running into the net (which come off their moorings fairly easily nowadays). I know it’s not true but “4 weeks” seems to be the default setting for an injury.


Training

Right now, we can't see if training is having an effect on ratings. It would be nice to have an up or down arrow or some colour coded indication of ratings increasing or decreasing.

This is probably a bug that has already been mentioned, but even though I have set the training to be human-controlled, it always gets reset.


Scouting

I should be able to scout individual players, teams, leagues, and nations.

There is a serious lack of feedback from scouts. I highly doubt NHL teams send out their scouting staff in the summer and don’t receive any feedback until the amateur draft. Actually, there isn’t even any feedback during the amateur draft.


Simulation

Throughout the entire season, my goalie was never pulled despite some lopsided games.


Draft

The draft is the part of sports management simulations I enjoy the most but unfortunately, it is seriously lacking in FHM. First, Pre-season, Mid-term, and Final ISS Rankings should be implemented and visible on the draft board. We could then see who went off the board which is a huge immersion element. Right now, it seems the AI is drafting in order based on potential. This is really meaningless. This must be consensus potential because if it was based on my scouts, it would mean every team has potential assessed the same way. If the default sorting was based on the top 200 final rankings, we could then see who went off the board -- much more immersive and entertaining.

Add to this, regular updates from scouts about draft-eligible players should be available over the course of the year. From here, I can then create a “draft shortlist” of players I want to scout more which can then be used on draft day. More viewings means more accurate assessments. I want to know that this potential draftee played on Sweden's World Junior Squad but was playing in Allsvenkan rather than the Elite League against men so his impressive stats may be misleading. Draft day should not be the first time I’m exposed to draft eligible players, which is the way it is currently implemented.

Ideally, I want to be able to create my own draft list based on criteria I deem valuable – height, weight, league played in, season stats, awards, and attributes. This could be done in game (no game has ever done that) or made available by exporting all of this information to Excel to let me create a draft list (which is painstakingly slow but what I did with EHM).

If you want to go one step further, draft-day trades could be implemented.


Miscellaneous

NHL three stars of the month, Rookie of the Month, would be nice touches for immersion.

It would be cool to have the Olympics, World Cup, and World Junior Championships included. If you’re successful enough as a GM, you could be chosen or could apply for running these teams. Being able to choose who made the Canadian World Junior and International squads in EHM was such an awesome addition.

It would be cool if organizations had retired jersey numbers that could no longer be assigned to players.

It might be a nice touch to mix in suspensions.

Since I play strictly as a GM, I wish I could hire a Head Coach with my choice being an important decision on the fate of my team. It seems awkward now with me as both a GM and Head Coach when I delegate tactics to my “Assistant” even though I’m not sure who that is as there is no "Assistant GM" modeled in the game.

I wish I could rename the awards.


Thanks for reading and best of luck to the OOTP/FHM team. I'm looking forward to many more versions in the future.

[Northernsky]

I have not posted much on here because its like preaching to the choir and my feelings which have been mostly positive are again.. like most others. Most of what you posted are common sense items that will most likely make it into future versions of FHM. Most of my wants are in your post and many others as you have already stated. I'm just glad you did not rant an angrily like so many others. First post I've read in a while that did not have me biting my tongue. Cudos.

[Peter10]

I have to agree with pretty much everything on this. I was really waiting for this game but somehow i cant get myself to play this regularly just yet. Maybe its because i am still too much into EHM, which i played for so many years.

Just the "space bar - advance one day" is something i stumble upon always when i notice i keep hitting it to get a day forward only to notice nothing is happening.

The biggest issue for me right now is the interface. I dont know why but i cant get a hang of it. Maybe its because i am getting old, maybe it something different. The feeling i get out of it however is, that it feels like the whole thing was started with the basic stuff and then more and more stuff got added but without aligning the interface. The basic rule of thumb should be that every screen should be accessiable within a few click and on a logic order. As of now it feels like all the stuff was somewhat scrambled together.

Dont get me wrong, as much i have to complain about the product, i like the approach and understand it takes quite some time and input to make this a better game and i will gladly support it. I just feel that now that most of the "basic" things are working, the team should focus on the useability and once this is done getting all those little thing sorted out.

[onyewu]

Where was this guy 10 months ago? He should make his own game!!

But seriously, I'm still not sure why I couldn't start an NHL season with the OT time still not corrected, yet everyone else is in 2025!?! {mind you, I can't even open FHM since upgrading my imac to mavericks a month+ ago}

[NateAndStuff]

Don't really have too much to add but just wanted to say that this post is outstanding. I've felt the same way about nearly all of these issues. Hope some of these get taken care of sooner rather than later!

[BlackIce]

I'd add the fact the game needs to adjust the way some players fighting majors happen as the big guys like McGrattan and Orr's don't fight each other very much and fight guys much smaller and players who only go a few times a year.

More misconducts and instigators would be a nice touch as well. Other than that your list is great buddy!