Never Tried FHM..How Does it Compare?

PSUColonel · 12-06-2022, 01:32 AM

How does FHM compare to OOTP? I am a long time OOTP user, but I have never really thought to ever give FHM a try. How does it compare as a sports management sim?

What are some of the things it does better than OOTP?, what are some of the things that maybe aren't as good? I'm anxious and curious to hear what people have to say!

Savoie45 · 12-06-2022, 06:47 AM

OOTP is about a decade further along and it shows. Franchise Hockey has made great strides since it came along, but it's still quite a way from matching OOTP in terms of overall depth and immersion. Truth is there aren't many sports sims that match OOTP. I'm very optimistic FHM will someday reach the greatness of OOTP, but there is the fact that hockey games are quite niche compared to baseball games. Therefore, the budget that FHM gets is likely not near that of OOTP, which means it could take even longer for the series to reach OOTP greatness.

The developers of the game are great and genuinely want to put out the best product possible every year. That's part of the reason I will always support the game. That and they are very involved with the community and when it comes to support of the game. I don't typically think it's fair to compare FHM with OOTP given the head start OOTP has, but I can understand why those coming from OOTP to FHM would want to know.

drummerJ99 · 12-06-2022, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

How does FHM compare to OOTP? I am a long time OOTP user, but I have never really thought to ever give FHM a try. How does it compare as a sports management sim?

What are some of the things it does better than OOTP?, what are some of the things that maybe aren't as good? I'm anxious and curious to hear what people have to say!

Compared to say OOTP23? Way behind it. There's alot of little stuff I miss compared to OOTP. Exporting in html/opening in brower, creating player cards at any time, filter by position when doing lineup, game recaps. Just to name a few.

All that is to say FHM isn't a bad product. As long as you go into it not comparing it to OOTP and pretend it's made by a different company completely.

Savoie45 · 12-06-2022, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drummerJ99

Compared to say OOTP23? Way behind it. There's alot of little stuff I miss compared to OOTP. Exporting in html/opening in brower, creating player cards at any time, filter by position when doing lineup, game recaps. Just to name a few.

All that is to say FHM isn't a bad product. As long as you go into it not comparing it to OOTP and pretend it's made by a different company completely.

It's made under the same umbrella yes, but that doesn't mean much other than brand name.

Tiger Fan · 12-06-2022, 06:04 PM

Since your duplicate thread on the OOTP side appears closed I will post here by taking a stab at the question with my thoughts on both. I can only talk about historical and fictional play with both games. It is just me, so not a comment on either game, but I have little interest in simming modern day sports so I can't speak about how the compare recreating the modern baseball or hockey universe.

HISTORICAL - In terms of results I would say they are extremely close and feel both are outstanding. The stats I get from each feel very realistic and each has a recalculate or game engine develop option for players. FHM has made great strides in recent years with the addition of real head coach/GMs and in areas of historical customization so you can do things like stay at 6 teams forever or have the WHA continue on past 1979. FHM does not have full historical minors like OOTP does but does a decent job of sort of mimicking it on it's own.

FICTIONAL - Again FHM has taken great strides in the past few versions and has a lot of customization along the lines of what you can do with OOTP. I hope they one day add to FHM things like league templates and the ability to edit/import your own namesets because namesets and nationality/regions is one area where FHM falls well short of what OOTP was even in it's infancy. Templates you could save in league creation would make the challenge of creating a league -and it is a slog if you want multiple leagues in your startup- so much easier. Like OOTP, just load your template make some additional changes you want and hit create game. That would be so much easier to help get your fictional league just right.

To me the biggest differences right now and where FHM falls well short of OOTP are interface and access to the history you have created in your world. The complete absence of any sort of html or even text file exports with FHM is a constant source of frustration for myself as a multi-year simmer who likes to write dynasty reports. To me it also makes an online league a much more difficult task has I have no idea how you could easily have a league website.

That and the fact that it has no easy to access Almanac/league history is the other big negative for FHM in my comparison. Much of the material is there - individual player stats for any season, leaderboards, etc- but like so much of FHM hard to find and cumbersome to load. In fact, it may be just that I am so much more familiar with OOTP but I find the whole FHM interface very difficult to navigate and things seem to need so many more clicks and/or are so time consuming to load when compared to OOTP.

Overall as a historical or fictional sim FHM -just like OOTP- has it's flaws but is far and away the best option of it's sport that I have ever played.

drummerJ99 · 12-07-2022, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savoie45

It's made under the same umbrella yes, but that doesn't mean much other than brand name.

That means it should be pretty simple to communicate between the two. Swap ideas and UI. Being under the same company means you can actually copy ideas from each other, unlike if it was developed by some random Hockey Fan Gaming non associated company.

tomkmb · 12-07-2022, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drummerJ99

That means it should be pretty simple to communicate between the two. Swap ideas and UI. Being under the same company means you can actually copy ideas from each other, unlike if it was developed by some random Hockey Fan Gaming non associated company.

I don't know how we could assume with such certainty the company structure, let alone the development resource allocation. What role does Game 54 Software play in all of this?

Could it be that the amount of work and upkeep that is required on the OOTP codebase is untenable for a team of 3 people (to my knowledge Jeff has gone on record stating that the team can be counted on 1 hand, so I'm including him, Adam and Sebastian in that)?

I don't think it's just as simple as a copy and paste job. Though I have no experience in software development, it just seems like a reasonable estimation.

drummerJ99 · 12-07-2022, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomkmb

What role does Game 54 Software play in all of this?

Isn't FHM9 the first time Game54 has been associated with FHM? I don't recall seeing that company with FHM8 or before. So will admit, I honestly have no clue what they add or bring to the table.

I honestly think being associated with OOTP hurts them more than it helps. OOTP has set a high bar that people except in all their games. Especially when it comes to stuff like the user interface and options like HTML..

oldfatbaldguy · 12-07-2022, 10:31 PM

I have no inside knowledge but strongly suspect the size-of-niche issue Savoie brought up is a factor. Hockey has a smaller audience, hockey games have a smaller audience. EHM ain't Football Manager, either, and those are also the same company. But FHM is in continuous development, compared to EHM having (I think) one new version in the last 15 years. So FHM is getting better and EHM is essentially what it was in 2007 -- the 2015 version having not been a giant leap forward.

Adam B · 12-08-2022, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomkmb

I don't know how we could assume with such certainty the company structure, let alone the development resource allocation. What role does Game 54 Software play in all of this?

Could it be that the amount of work and upkeep that is required on the OOTP codebase is untenable for a team of 3 people (to my knowledge Jeff has gone on record stating that the team can be counted on 1 hand, so I'm including him, Adam and Sebastian in that)?

I don't think it's just as simple as a copy and paste job. Though I have no experience in software development, it just seems like a reasonable estimation.

I'm just going to step in here; so you can click on the Credits in the game and see the size of the team.

Sebastian and Malte are the Lead Developers/do the coding and Jeff is the producer of the Game.

That's the team. While some others are researchers, or a Community Manager like myself (or in some cases, I've spent time doing some of the writing in the game), those 3 are the heart and soul of what FHM is.

Also; just to put any other misinformation out there; game54 is that team listed above.

I'm not here to give a judgment on what you should or should not do, but if you do decide to purchase FHM9 PSUColonel, we appreciate the support.

tomkmb · 12-08-2022, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam B

I'm just going to step in here; so you can click on the Credits in the game and see the size of the team.

Sebastian and Malte are the Lead Developers/do the coding and Jeff is the producer of the Game.

That's the team. While some others are researchers, or a Community Manager like myself (or in some cases, I've spent time doing some of the writing in the game), those 3 are the heart and soul of what FHM is.

Also; just to put any other misinformation out there; game54 is that team listed above.

I'm not here to give a judgment on what you should or should not do, but if you do decide to purchase FHM9 PSUColonel, we appreciate the support.

Thanks for that Adam, good to know.

I appreciate the work all of you do to continue to support and improve these titles year in year out.

BMFPitt · 12-09-2022, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drummerJ99

That means it should be pretty simple to communicate between the two. Swap ideas and UI. Being under the same company means you can actually copy ideas from each other, unlike if it was developed by some random Hockey Fan Gaming non associated company.

I was just about to buy FHM for myself and two friends that I play an online OOTP league with, and I had do scrap that plan when I looked at the manual and saw that there's a ton of automated stuff in OOTP that you have to do manually in FHM.

That's a dealbreaker, and doesn't make sense to me. Given how basic that functionality already is, why reinvent the wheel? Do they not even share a codebase?

Savoie45 · 12-10-2022, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMFPitt

I was just about to buy FHM for myself and two friends that I play an online OOTP league with, and I had do scrap that plan when I looked at the manual and saw that there's a ton of automated stuff in OOTP that you have to do manually in FHM.

That's a dealbreaker, and doesn't make sense to me. Given how basic that functionality already is, why reinvent the wheel? Do they not even share a codebase?

I don't believe they do.

drummerJ99 · 12-10-2022, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BMFPitt

Do they not even share a codebase?

I don't believe so. I figured that would be a benefit of being under the same umbrella of "OOTP Developments" and would give you a solid base to start with.

Savoie45 · 12-10-2022, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drummerJ99

I don't believe so. I figured that would be a benefit of being under the same umbrella of "OOTP Developments" and would give you a solid base to start with.

But you're talking two different sports that are quite different in every way. It may have been more problematic than helpful had they decided to use the same code base. I'm pretty sure Jeff has talked about this during one of their streams for FHM 2 or FHM 3, I don't remember exactly.

drummerJ99 · 12-11-2022, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savoie45

But you're talking two different sports that are quite different in every way. It may have been more problematic than helpful had they decided to use the same code base. I'm pretty sure Jeff has talked about this during one of their streams for FHM 2 or FHM 3, I don't remember exactly.

I'm not talking the actual sim engine, of course that'd be different. I'm talking about the UI and everything done outside the actual game of hockey.

All it takes is a few minutes with both outside of actually playing the game of hockey/baseball and you'll see how vastly superior OOTP is.

12-06-2022, 01:32 AM	#1
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,106	Never Tried FHM..How Does it Compare? How does FHM compare to OOTP? I am a long time OOTP user, but I have never really thought to ever give FHM a try. How does it compare as a sports management sim? What are some of the things it does better than OOTP?, what are some of the things that maybe aren't as good? I'm anxious and curious to hear what people have to say!

12-06-2022, 06:04 PM	#5
Tiger Fan Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Ontario Canada Posts: 9,809	Since your duplicate thread on the OOTP side appears closed I will post here by taking a stab at the question with my thoughts on both. I can only talk about historical and fictional play with both games. It is just me, so not a comment on either game, but I have little interest in simming modern day sports so I can't speak about how the compare recreating the modern baseball or hockey universe. HISTORICAL - In terms of results I would say they are extremely close and feel both are outstanding. The stats I get from each feel very realistic and each has a recalculate or game engine develop option for players. FHM has made great strides in recent years with the addition of real head coach/GMs and in areas of historical customization so you can do things like stay at 6 teams forever or have the WHA continue on past 1979. FHM does not have full historical minors like OOTP does but does a decent job of sort of mimicking it on it's own. FICTIONAL - Again FHM has taken great strides in the past few versions and has a lot of customization along the lines of what you can do with OOTP. I hope they one day add to FHM things like league templates and the ability to edit/import your own namesets because namesets and nationality/regions is one area where FHM falls well short of what OOTP was even in it's infancy. Templates you could save in league creation would make the challenge of creating a league -and it is a slog if you want multiple leagues in your startup- so much easier. Like OOTP, just load your template make some additional changes you want and hit create game. That would be so much easier to help get your fictional league just right. To me the biggest differences right now and where FHM falls well short of OOTP are interface and access to the history you have created in your world. The complete absence of any sort of html or even text file exports with FHM is a constant source of frustration for myself as a multi-year simmer who likes to write dynasty reports. To me it also makes an online league a much more difficult task has I have no idea how you could easily have a league website. That and the fact that it has no easy to access Almanac/league history is the other big negative for FHM in my comparison. Much of the material is there - individual player stats for any season, leaderboards, etc- but like so much of FHM hard to find and cumbersome to load. In fact, it may be just that I am so much more familiar with OOTP but I find the whole FHM interface very difficult to navigate and things seem to need so many more clicks and/or are so time consuming to load when compared to OOTP. Overall as a historical or fictional sim FHM -just like OOTP- has it's flaws but is far and away the best option of it's sport that I have ever played. __________________ Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles Last edited by Tiger Fan; 12-06-2022 at 06:07 PM.

12-06-2022, 06:47 AM	#2
Savoie45 All Star Reserve Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: Oregon Posts: 788	OOTP is about a decade further along and it shows. Franchise Hockey has made great strides since it came along, but it's still quite a way from matching OOTP in terms of overall depth and immersion. Truth is there aren't many sports sims that match OOTP. I'm very optimistic FHM will someday reach the greatness of OOTP, but there is the fact that hockey games are quite niche compared to baseball games. Therefore, the budget that FHM gets is likely not near that of OOTP, which means it could take even longer for the series to reach OOTP greatness. The developers of the game are great and genuinely want to put out the best product possible every year. That's part of the reason I will always support the game. That and they are very involved with the community and when it comes to support of the game. I don't typically think it's fair to compare FHM with OOTP given the head start OOTP has, but I can understand why those coming from OOTP to FHM would want to know.

12-07-2022, 10:31 PM	#9
oldfatbaldguy Major Leagues Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 393	I have no inside knowledge but strongly suspect the size-of-niche issue Savoie brought up is a factor. Hockey has a smaller audience, hockey games have a smaller audience. EHM ain't Football Manager, either, and those are also the same company. But FHM is in continuous development, compared to EHM having (I think) one new version in the last 15 years. So FHM is getting better and EHM is essentially what it was in 2007 -- the 2015 version having not been a giant leap forward.