FHM 11 - Wishlist & Suggestions

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by #4BobbyOrr

Since it’s been mentioned now what are the chances we see FHM11 in time for the new season? It would be a welcome change to be able to get a franchise started before the NHL commences.

Pretty sure it depends on a couple of major factors

1. Everything being to go from the NHL itself.
2. How comfortable they are releasing the game in whatever state it is in at that time.


From the way Jeff has talked lately on the stream it seems it will at least release earlier than last year.

[Colorado]

I'd rather them take the time to release something they're happy with, as opposed to feeling pressured to rush out the new version.

That said, with hype slowly starting to build ahead of the new NHL season, it'd make sense to leverage that by drip feeding some details about the new game.

[#4BobbyOrr]

I would much rather they released something they’re happy with also but that being said when the game is released over a month into the season for those who mostly play modern day NHL and strive for realism it becomes out of date very quickly.

[tomkmb]

Originally Posted by #4BobbyOrr

I would much rather they released something they’re happy with also but that being said when the game is released over a month into the season for those who mostly play modern day NHL and strive for realism it becomes out of date very quickly.

I'm not sure how many licensed sports simulation games release in time for the beginning of their season - for example Football Manager releases in November most years despite the English Football season starting in August (though given the scope of the game, I'm sure some season starts in November - it's always opening day somewhere right?). As Savoie has hinted at, I'm sure there's official stuff that doesn't get confirmed until close to the hour.

I get it though, I'm always itching to get playing when the season starts (and can't bring myself to suffer another version of EA NHL).

[JMKraus]

-A more detailed and polished draft log (and an easier access than having to go through each season in the team history).
-A more comprehensive training camp/pre-season.
-Retool the drafting AI. I saw AI teams drafting goalies many times during a sole draft (like in rounds 1, 2, 4 and 5 for example).
-Historical teams stats (wins, loss, goals, goals against, presence in playoffs both for each season and cumulative - like OOTP)

[Castleview]

Some kind of advanced warning (e.g. news message) when the NHL roster/contracts numbers
are going to change in historical games.

e.g. in 1949-50 the NHL roster size increases from 20 to 23, and
dressed from 18 to 19. Also during the late 1940's the contract number goes from 50 to 60 to 70 over a few seasons.

It's annoying with the waiver rules in place that you do some advanced
trading to avoid losing players for nothing, only to discover you could have
held onto them!

[Tiger Fan]

I would love to see the AI controlled teams in a fictional league to be able to follow simple league rules much better. My custom league has a draft from the custom junior league and similar to NHL rules in that drafted players under 20 can play only in the pro league or stay in junior as the AHL type minor league has a minimum age of 20. Despite this AI GMs constantly sign most of their draft picks and then, because they aren’t ready for the pro league and are too young for the minor pro league it has to release them.

They eventually resign with a junior team but now the pro team has lost their rights and it becomes an easy exploit for human GMs to sign them at the end of the season as free agents.

[beltre13]

Two things I would like to see added.

In historical mode I would like the option to have historical transactions take place. This is an option in OOTP and think it would be great for historical sims.

A minor thing would be to edit retired numbers for players when they retire.

[GMO123]

Goalies should conform more to their ratings.

Right now in my league the best goalies have a 3 star rating.

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by GMO123

Goalies should conform more to their ratings.

Right now in my league the best goalies have a 3 star rating.

3 Star ability is a pretty good player overall. Considering 1.5 stars is considered a capable player.

[boscoJJ]

I think devs don't want to add Custom International comps
how about Real players in custom league before 2024

[progen]

Option to turn "stars" off. I didn't buy 10, but don't remember seeing that as an option?

[GMO123]

Originally Posted by Savoie45

3 Star ability is a pretty good player overall. Considering 1.5 stars is considered a capable player.

This is the NHL.
3-star goalies should not be the best in save % and goals against in the NHL.

There is something wrong with this.
I hope it is fixed.

I still think FHM is a good game.

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by GMO123

This is the NHL.
3-star goalies should not be the best in save % and goals against in the NHL.

There is something wrong with this.
I hope it is fixed.

I still think FHM is a good game.

Not sure who made up that rule, but I think it's great that a lower rated player can have a breakout season like that. Just as not every 4+ star player will have a great season, because in reality both can happen. Superstars can have off years and lesser knowns can have breakout seasons.

[GMO123]

Originally Posted by Savoie45

Not sure who made up that rule, but I think it's great that a lower rated player can have a breakout season like that. Just as not every 4+ star player will have a great season, because in reality both can happen. Superstars can have off years and lesser knowns can have breakout seasons.

Yes, it's great when individual players can have breakout or exceptional years.
It makes it less predictable.

The problem is that the lesser-valued goalies (such as 3 stars) are just as good or better consistently than the 5 star goalies.
If it was occasional it would be great but it's too consistent.

There's no point getting a 5 (or 4) star goalie when a 3 star does just as well or even better.

In my NHL league the 3 star goalies are the best goalies, not the 5 star.

[#4BobbyOrr]

Originally Posted by GMO123

This is the NHL.
3-star goalies should not be the best in save % and goals against in the NHL.

There is something wrong with this.
I hope it is fixed.

I still think FHM is a good game.

Have you missed all the dominant one off seasons average goalies have had the last 20 years? If a player at any position is to have weird anomalies it’s far more likely to be a goalie than a skater.

[GMO123]

For Stats it would be nice to have a filter on Games Played so that players who played few games could be eliminated.

[GMO123]

Originally Posted by #4BobbyOrr

Have you missed all the dominant one off seasons average goalies have had the last 20 years? If a player at any position is to have weird anomalies it’s far more likely to be a goalie than a skater.

A goalie could have an exceptional year but they should not all be like that.

In my NHL game most or all the top goalies (save average, goals against) are 2 or 3 star goalies, every year.

[GnocchiTheMineral]

I have to say, I've been playing FHM 7 for the past few years and it is far and away the best pure sports simulation I have ever seen in my life, and I love it. Purely and simply love it.

In my time playing, I have noticed a lot of things I like and, by extension, have used quite often- I'll list these here:
-Custom Leagues: The ability to add whole custom leagues and, within those, completely custom teams with your OWN logos and even jerseys is such a cool and fun option- being able to start a league from the ground up and sim years and years ahead is such an awesome concept, being a commissioner and watching as teams change and evolve.

-Multiplayer Leagues: Unfortunately, the NHL games have been without online multiplayer franchise for more than a decade now, which has made the series less engaging- the fact that FHM has multiplayer leagues is awesome, and while I personally don't play online all that much, I do use the feature in order to sometimes control multiple teams, for an extra added challenge.

-Player Editing: The suite for editing player attributes and tendencies is so detailed and faceted, it really gives you the feeling that this player is unique within the league itself- again, something the NHL games don't capture very well with the 0-99 rating format. 1-20 seemed more arbitrary to me at first, but the more I've played, the more I've come to appreciate that a 16/20 'aggressive forechecker' and a 16/20 'shadow' or 'garbage collecter' add such insanely different things to a team. EA treats them like the same thing.


There's a lot more that I love, far more than I could ever properly break down in detail here, with that in mind, here are some things I would consider adding (if they haven't been added in the years since).

-Women's leagues and players: even if you can't get licensing, having women's leagues would be really neat.

-Export teams: Often, I build really cool and memorable teams in a league, but there's no way to export them for use in quick sims, which is a shame- I'd really like to test some of my teams against some of the all time greats!

-Import teams: Likewise, being able to import teams straight from one league to another would be very nice.

-Create players, teams and leagues: the way you can expand leagues is already terrific, but I feel that it's slow, since you have to build your league right in the in-game menu. It would be much better if you could create teams and create/generate players for them, and then add those teams to their own leagues outside of a save.

-League structure: In a similar vein, it'd be amazing if you could structure your league into conferences and divisions WITHOUT having to start a new save every time, this way, you can start a new save up with the same exact custom teams and players without having to always realign and rename teams and stadiums.

-NTC/NMC Depth: The NHL series has added this for NHL 25- players can have partial no trade clauses, this isn't present in 7 to my knowledge, it's only full NTC and NMC which sometimes stinks.

-Draft picks: You can only trade picks up to three years in advance, and you can't trade conditionally; it would be terrific if you could trade conditional picks/compensation, as this is a pretty big aspect in real-life trades.

-Cold hard cash: When simming through pre-expansion and early expansion years, I often find myself wishing I could trade some of my budget in exchange for players in picks, to smaller market teams in an effort to help them out.

-Scripted expansion/relocation: I find myself constantly wishing I could schedule expansions for custom leagues years in advance, instead of having to go year by year for those things, being able to just put it all into an excel spreadsheet for the ready would be SO welcome.

-Playable games and 3d simulation: A huge point in FHM's favor is how immersive it can be, as it really feels as though you're navigating the league's website and such; but the simulation just breaks that so much, I'm so past squares and circles with numbers on them. I know it's a colossal expectation, but this is a WISHLIST and I really wish we could get a 3d simulation akin to what OOTP gives us.

[GnocchiTheMineral]

Originally Posted by #4BobbyOrr

Have you missed all the dominant one off seasons average goalies have had the last 20 years? If a player at any position is to have weird anomalies it’s far more likely to be a goalie than a skater.

The problem isn't that it happens, because it's true, every year or two we get a surprise goalie that turns some heads and makes a name for himself.

The issue that I find is that when I'm doing a sim, I'll routinely get 2 and 3 star goalies dominating the top 10 in a lot of stats where it just doesn't match up. I'll get into around 2005-2015 for instance, and the good goalies are still really good, but then I'll also get like Jacob Markstrom or like Jeff Zatkoff winning Vezinas when they're on rosters with Roberto Luongo and Marc Andre Fleury in their PRIMES.

It just doesn't make any sense, like Markstrom's a really good starter NOW but 10 years ago the dude was a low-end NHLer at most, yet the sim LOVES him in FHM 7. Same happens with other guys, Tomas Vokoun, Jaroslav Halak, Annti Niemi, guys who absolutely had their moments in real life but were never truly on that upper tier, seem to get there CONSISTENTLY in FHM, and it does break the immersion, at least, for me.

I'm fine with an occasional breakout, I'm not fine with fringes starters-high end backups winning NHL awards because they "got hot". That's more of what it is, your goalie's rating doesn't seem to matter, it's whether they're on a hot streak or not. If your goalie gets on a hot streak you're winning 55 games even with bad TEAMS, that's not... realistic. Like at all.