Was there any point in publishing FHM 6?

[zagardlenie]

To begin with, I am going to be really critical, because it was a great matter of importance for me that Franchise Hockey Manager would present itself as a challenging simulator.

In fact, on the market, there is no competition in this field. That’s why when it comes to hockey, I could only depend on that project. And that makes my disappointment even more severe.

This game is not giving me any kind of satisfaction, since it’s just too easy. That makes its biggest issue since I can remember. The problem occurs also in previous parts of this project, beginning with FHM 3, where regular season was critically easy and FHM 5 where situations presents the same.

It doesn’t matter which team I am going to lead since I am always ending up in top 5, usually top 3. It’s boring, unrealistic.

In addition, every time the team receives boost for the last 20 games of the regular season.

You produce such easy games to prevent your customers from developing bad opinions on your product, since they get easily frustrated with fails. For such people the game has to be simple and convenient. It is obvious that majority of people playing this type of games are just a group of lazy fanboys, getting excited by epic and repetable achievements of their teams and favourite players. And you, as games’ creator, take great advantage of that.

Here’s link for gameplay which you made in order to present FHM 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-AbmNemREI

It was made by managers Adam and Jeff. Not until second period of preseason game have you noticed that each of your forwards are set in basic "Screener" role. 1:12:13. It’s embarrassing. You seem to be the type of people who don’t know what they are doing. Just like sunday players. Like you would be playing this game for the first time ever. This is not the kind of behaviour that is presented by two individuals that are two most important people for this game, and who are supposed to know this project from its roots. Total lack of commitment and knowledge about mechanism standing behind this game! You’ve presented the new tactical system to the people but at the same time you couldn’t say anything smart about it. The funny thing is that while playing only with Screeners you had 15 shots on goal, playing against Chicago Blackhawks which only had 11 shots on goal, haha. It just shows how the mechanism of this game is a huge illusion.

You boast about the fact that you produce OOTP for 20 years now. FHM for 6 or 7. How come trades in those games are so illogical and stupid? How can you produce game for 20 years and not programme rational trades which are made by Al?

I saw many moronic examples in this game, but since I stopped playing months ago, I’m going to provide the last one I can remember:
In the game the month is February. Colorado Avalanche is in top 4 of its conference. It has real chances for playoffs. Each of defencemans is healthy. However, Gabriel Landeskog, its forward, gets seriously injured. He is out of the game for few months. Colorado does trade and gives away Alexander Kerfoot (also forward) for exceptionally weak defenceman Igor Ozhiganov. In addition, Kerfoot was in top 5 of best scoring players of Colorado when Ozhiganov was claimed off waivers by different team month ago, which means he was traded from team to team.

This is a imbecility. 19 out of 20 trades are a total imbecility.

In Washington Capitals, Holtby played in 11 matches (he wasn’t injured once) because for the rest of the season Copley was playing at the cost of Holtby.

Korpisalo became first goalkeeper in playoffs at the cost of Bobrovsky, because he had better heat level on the beginning of playoffs. Bobrovsky had definitely more matches in regular season, and what is most important, best save percentage in the whole league!!! It’s ridiculous.

You’re just a weak studio with weak programmists. Maybe you should hire someone young and competent, who would manage to get things right? We have year 2019 and seriously, you can’t produce sensible game script?
It's your fault. Fault of your poor abilities.

I've carried out a few tests:
- I lifted up attributes of every General Managers in NHL to the maximum - it hasn't affected the quality of trades since they were as ridiculous as previously.
- i lifted up the Head Coaches "player management, motivation, discipline, tactics, ingame tactics and evaluated abilities" to 20. - it hasn't affected the difficulty level at all. It haven't made any difference for me. I have finished regular season as one of the best teams in the league as previously.
- I have randomly made just a few Head Coaches the gods - as it turned out, at the bottom of the standings there were the teams that had the gods as their coaches. It seems that it's going to be a pure accident which team will play well and which one will play poorly.

I think that most of the mechanism standing behind this game is just a illusion. On the forum, Jeff always speaks out as the game would be exceptionally complicated simulator. I think it's a huge bull****.

[Savoie45]

You should try offering some constructive criticism rather than coming across like a jerk. I understand wanting more from a product that you pay for, but this type of post isn't going to make them want to help you.

[zagardlenie]

I'm not a game programmer so I won't teach poor game developer how to make solid games, since they haven't learned it for 20 years.

I'm disgusted by releasing the same poor game in a new look (new rosters, new interface color).

[Savoie45]

Then quit buying it every year. If I'm not happy with a product, I stop buying it. Like I said, this attitude won't make them want to reply to your concerns.

[zagardlenie]

Their answer? Diplomatic "Blah Blah" will not bring anything.

[Colorado]

You might have some valid points, but you need to post them a little more politely and constructively if you want the developers to engage with you.

[rain94]

This is my first FHM and I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm coming from thousands of hours on Eastside Hockey Manager and from the very early beginnings of what was shaping up as Eastside when it was only a small project.

First off, FHM's UI is a little clunky, confusing at times, and buggy, but underneath the UI, there is a good hockey simulation. I care a lot of about the statistical representation and accuracy of the sport a sim is trying to replicate, and from my very initial impression since playing on Monday, I find that the numbers are pretty much on point, from goals, assists, shots, hits, shot %, PP%, PIM, etc. I think maybe the fighting majors are too low. This is for the modern era since I haven't touched anything historical.

There were some very high scoring games when I started playing (8-2, 9-4) but the numbers have started coming down to what one would expect. My past two games with Calgary have ended 2-1 and 1-0. Individual stat leaders from the league and from my team are spot on.

I like where FHM is going. I reckon it might take a couple of more years for it to really shine though, especially after they add a 2D match engine and the mechanics for retaining salaries. I believe they will also add full NCAA Division I - Division III as playable leagues. That's going to be amazing.

Apart from that, a look through their change log of updates between FHM5 and FHM6, and one can see that a lot of work and attention of detail was put into FHM6.

And what are you talking about? OOTP is well-respected within the Sports Management gaming community. Trades are not perfect in that but it's not bad either, certainly not as bad as you are saying it is.

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

Their answer? Diplomatic "Blah Blah" will not bring anything.

Then why are you wasting your time? Like I said, don't like what they offer, don't play it and don't buy it. Since you obviously aren't interested in what they'd have to say either, then why even post this? I'm willing to bet you'll continue playing and buying the game regardless.

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by rain94

This is my first FHM and I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm coming from thousands of hours on Eastside Hockey Manager and from the very early beginnings of what was shaping up as Eastside when it was only a small project.

First off, FHM's UI is a little clunky, confusing at times, and buggy, but underneath the UI, there is a good hockey simulation. I care a lot of about the statistical representation and accuracy of the sport a sim is trying to replicate, and from my very initial impression since playing on Monday, I find that the numbers are pretty much on point, from goals, assists, shots, hits, shot %, PP%, PIM, etc. I think maybe the fighting majors are too low. This is for the modern era since I haven't touched anything historical.

There were some very high scoring games when I started playing (8-2, 9-4) but the numbers have started coming down to what one would expect. My past two games with Calgary have ended 2-1 and 1-0. Individual stat leaders from the league and from my team are spot on.

I like where FHM is going. I reckon it might take a couple of more years for it to really shine though, especially after they add a 2D match engine and the mechanics for retaining salaries. I believe they will also add full NCAA Division I - Division III as playable leagues. That's going to be amazing.

Apart from that, a look through their change log of updates between FHM5 and FHM6, and one can see that a lot of work and attention of detail was put into FHM6.

And what are you talking about? OOTP is well-respected within the Sports Management gaming community. Trades are not perfect in that but it's not bad either, certainly not as bad as you are saying it is.

Stat wise, I'd say the game matches reality pretty well indeed. The trade AI could be tweaked a bit, but that's a constant I'm sure. The trade AI will never match real life GM logic or even close, so as long as teams aren't trading franchise players for low level talent, I'm ok with the trades.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

To begin with, I am going to be really critical, because it was a great matter of importance for me that Franchise Hockey Manager would present itself as a challenging simulator.

"Critical" - Okay. Sure. Welcome back Zagardlenie.

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

This game is not giving me any kind of satisfaction, since it’s just too easy. That makes its biggest issue since I can remember. The problem occurs also in previous parts of this project, beginning with FHM 3, where regular season was critically easy and FHM 5 where situations presents the same.

It doesn’t matter which team I am going to lead since I am always ending up in top 5, usually top 3. It’s boring, unrealistic.

We've actually had very few complaints in this area. Anyone who watches us stream weekly, you would see that not everything goes correct every time. Perhaps you need to try something different than doing the same thing every time.

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

You produce such easy games to prevent your customers from developing bad opinions on your product, since they get easily frustrated with fails. For such people the game has to be simple and convenient. It is obvious that majority of people playing this type of games are just a group of lazy fanboys, getting excited by epic and repetable achievements of their teams and favourite players. And you, as games’ creator, take great advantage of that.

This is "Critical"? This is not at all. This is untrue for so many reasons.

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

Here’s link for gameplay which you made in order to present FHM 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-AbmNemREI

It was made by managers Adam and Jeff. Not until second period of preseason game have you noticed that each of your forwards are set in basic "Screener" role. 1:12:13. It’s embarrassing.

I'm not even going to address the rest of this because you are making a very petty argument here. I know what I'm doing. Jeff knows what he is doing. What I DO want you to realize is to look when that video was published. September 30th, 2018. Look at the number on the game when it starts.

We were Beta Testing still. Do you know why it caught me by a surprise? Because we hadn't seen it happen before. At that point last year I probably had played around 250 hours of FHM5. I wasn't checking because in every simulation previous to that, it wasn't an issue.

You may notice that it forced me to make sure when promoting the game earlier this year, I made sure to say BETA many times in our videos.

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

You boast about the fact that you produce OOTP for 20 years now. FHM for 6 or 7. How come trades in those games are so illogical and stupid? How can you produce game for 20 years and not programme rational trades which are made by Al?

We continue to monitor trade sequences but finding the right balance is not always easy. We've made good strides over the past year, but when the AI decides it needs something, it may do something you disagree with. However there is always logic behind it.

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

In Washington Capitals, Holtby played in 11 matches (he wasn’t injured once) because for the rest of the season Copley was playing at the cost of Holtby.

Korpisalo became first goalkeeper in playoffs at the cost of Bobrovsky, because he had better heat level on the beginning of playoffs. Bobrovsky had definitely more matches in regular season, and what is most important, best save percentage in the whole league!!! It’s ridiculous.

As we continued to update the game, this stopped happening as we changed how coaches weighed their decision. That doesn't mean it's wrong though. Remind me, the year when they won the Cup, who started the playoffs for the Capitals?

Or who started this season?

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

You’re just a weak studio with weak programmists. Maybe you should hire someone young and competent, who would manage to get things right? We have year 2019 and seriously, you can’t produce sensible game script?
It's your fault. Fault of your poor abilities.

I think that most of the mechanism standing behind this game is just a illusion. On the forum, Jeff always speaks out as the game would be exceptionally complicated simulator. I think it's a huge bull****.

This is "Critical"? No, this is how you get banned from our forums. Right now, I'm simply going to lock this topic because there is nothing else that is going to be remotely productive from it. If Jeff wants to answer, he may, but I'll simply leave it at that.

If you continue to post like this, you will not be on this forum. It is as simple as that. It's hard to take anything you're posting with the slightest bit of sincerity when you parlay a message as such.


Edit:

Originally Posted by zagardlenie

A few more observations confirming that you are not developing this game at all:

- Your current level of programming prevents you from introducing such simple things like “Training Camp” in NHL.

From your post I removed. It's become clear you haven't actually played because Training Camps are in the game. If you continue down this path, you are going to get banned.