Are Historical Games High Quality?

[Charlie Hough]

I was a long-time contributor to the OOTP Baseball forums, and I have played that game since OOTP3.

I did not buy the first version of FHM because it did not include historical play. That was a complete deal-breaker. I have not invested in the new version because I am wary of the many issues that inevitably plague products in early stages of development. And I read a lot of negative reviews of the first version.

That being said, I recently checked this forum to find out if a historical mode has been added to FHM, and I discovered that it had. You can play historical seasons and perhaps play into future seasons with historical players and teams. However, it appears that it is not possible to play fictional leagues using historical players. Hopefully this will make it into the next version.

I might consider buying the current version if there is some reasonably good feedback about historical play and the overall quality of the game, but I am pretty particular about accuracy, gameplay, realism, and bugs. I really don't want to invest time, money, and effort in something that is going to disappoint. I generally have pretty high expectations and would rather wait until I'm fairly sure that they will be met.

So maybe it would be better to wait another couple of years until the game is developed further and hopefully much closer to the current iteration of OOTP Basbeball in its completeness, flexibility, options, and quality. In particular, the historical mode is my absolute top priority. I have zero interest in current NHL games.

For those of you who play FHM, what do you think about the game, and what about the historical mode in particular?

How accurate are historical results?

How does the user coach games, and can you reasonably manage line changes and strategies and coach the game the way someone behind the bench would in real life? Or is it more involved with a lot of decisions regarding whether you want to pass, shoot, etc.? Or is there no coaching mode at all?

How does the game determine player ratings and attributes for seasons in where statistical data is incomplete or unavailable for various critical categories?

How does player development work in historical games? Can you turn it off and use a recalc setting like OOTP Baseball? If historical players who retired in real life keep playing in FHM, how is their development handled? Do their attributes remain stuck perpetually at their last updated level based on the stats database?

Also, would it be possible to run a historical sim until a particular season and then turn off future expansion and franchise changes so the league maintains a given number of teams and structure into future seasons?

I probably have many more questions, but these would be a good start, and some positive feedback might lead me to take the plunge.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[JeffR]

Small correction to begin with: FHM had historical right from the start (well, the public start, at least, I think it became functional not long before the first public release.)

How accurate are historical results?

Depends on which results you're looking for. Replicating individual seasons with a lot of accuracy is going to be tough without a lot of editing and adjusting beforehand; but if you look at the leading scorers after 85 seasons, particularly with recalc on, the 'right' guys will be at the top with reasonably close numbers.

How does the user coach games, and can you reasonably manage line changes and strategies and coach the game the way someone behind the bench would in real life? Or is it more involved with a lot of decisions regarding whether you want to pass, shoot, etc.? Or is there no coaching mode at all?

You do have a considerable degree of control over coaching strategy, albeit not to the extent of making individual line changes or every pass/shoot decision.

How does the game determine player ratings and attributes for seasons in where statistical data is incomplete or unavailable for various critical categories?

Player ratings are almost entirely subjective, so there's no straight-line connection with stats for most of them; hockey stats, particularly pre-modern ones, are nowhere near as useful for building a simulation as baseball ones, so we don't get the luxury of letting a Lahman-like db do a bunch of the work.

Without getting into too much detail, what we've done is set up a system of templates that describe ratings for different types types of players, and that, in combination with their overall talent level and any extra data that's entered for the player, produces the ratings you see in-game. They also get data that describes their actual career arc; that's used to determine the starting ratings in a historical game and, if you choose annual recalc, how they get adjusted from season to season. For the historical database, I've made sure that every player who's played in the NHL (and a few more) has all that data entered, and now it's an ongoing process to add detail to them when I can to make the players more and more realistic, and bulk up the player list with draft busts and well-known minor leaguers who never made it to the top.

How does player development work in historical games? Can you turn it off and use a recalc setting like OOTP Baseball? If historical players who retired in real life keep playing in FHM, how is their development handled? Do their attributes remain stuck perpetually at their last updated level based on the stats database?

Two options: annual recalc (which will also retire players after the final season of pro hockey they played in real life) and regular development mode, which is entirely freeform - once a new player is added, his development is handled exactly as it is in the modern version of the game (although still heavily influenced by ratings - Gordie Howe is probably going to stay around a long time regardless of development mode, Wayne Gretzky will always have massive potential.)

Also, would it be possible to run a historical sim until a particular season and then turn off future expansion and franchise changes so the league maintains a given number of teams and structure into future seasons?

Not possible right now. We need the auto-scheduler to be a little more robust and the league structures more flexible before we can handle departures from actual historical league formats right now.

After 4+ years spent building it, I'd definitely like to do more with the historical database in future versions, like allowing fictional play with historical players, importing historical players into modern games, etc., but that's going to be dependent on the time budgeted for coding historical features in new versions, and the priorities we set for that. Getting the start date back to the first NHL season in 1917 may take precedence, given that some recent changes we've made to the way we handle multileague cups will make it a little easier to work the other major leagues that competed for the cup in the teens and twenties into the game. We'll keep adding to historical, but people seem to be having a pretty good time with it as-is at the moment.

[Duranium]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

,.... In particular, the historical mode is my absolute top priority. I have zero interest in current NHL games.

For those of you who play FHM, what do you think about the game, and what about the historical mode in particular?

How accurate are historical results?

Jeff already answered your questions so to cut a long story short:

As it´s also my favorite mode, I really, really enjoy the historical mode and although there are always things to improve in sports sims in general, results are very realistic. If you´d give it a try you surely won´t get disappointed

[Charlie Hough]

Thanks for the thorough response.

Two more quick questions:

Is there an option to turn off the import or use of players who never made it to the NHL?

What can be done with the full download of the game? I'm assuming it's a demo. What can be done with the demo, and how far can the game go before it stops functioning or you can't sim additional seasons? Is it possible to download the game and try the historical mode for a while?

I'm disappointed that I can't set up a historical structure and keep it that way. I really hope there will be more focus on historical options and flexibility rather than trying to accommodate seasons dating back to 1917. With the lack of statistics and reliable sources on the early era of the NHL, I'm not sure why that would be a priority, but maybe some people really want to simulate the full history of the league at all costs.

I would rather start in the 1960s or a later period when the database is a lot less speculative and based more on stats and reliable information.

The process of trying to create a makeshift historical database sounds rather messy, so I suspect that there is not enough accuracy across players of all ability levels. But there isn't much that can be done when there aren't enough stats to rate players properly in every area. I would probably start by studying the ratings sets of a lot of hockey board games and sims that include players from past decades and use those as part of my evaluations. Maybe that's been part of the effort.

[pens66]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Is there an option to turn off the import or use of players who never made it to the NHL?

Actually, the historical database only includes players that played a minimum of one NHL or WHA game. Maybe there's the odd European player from the Eastern bloc era here or there who never made it, but I'm not sure about that.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by JeffR

For the historical database, I've made sure that every player who's played in the NHL (and a few more) has all that data entered, and now it's an ongoing process to add detail to them when I can to make the players more and more realistic, and bulk up the player list with draft busts and well-known minor leaguers who never made it to the top.

Okay, this quote was leading me to believe that non-NHL players were in the database already. Maybe that's something planned for the future. Hopefully it will be optional.

Can anyone provide an answer to my demo question? Can you download the game for a demo trial, and what can you do with it and how far can you play or sim?

[Hockey13Playa]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Can anyone provide an answer to my demo question? Can you download the game for a demo trial, and what can you do with it and how far can you play or sim?

I am about 99% certain there is no demo available.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

Okay, this quote was leading me to believe that non-NHL players were in the database already. Maybe that's something planned for the future. Hopefully it will be optional.

Can anyone provide an answer to my demo question? Can you download the game for a demo trial, and what can you do with it and how far can you play or sim?

I've added a few non-NHLers. But there's no one in it who realistically couldn't have made the NHL, and they're rated appropriately, just as very fringe roster-filler types. I'm guessing you're thinking of experiences with some OOTP db's that include non-major leaguers that can wind up as superstars in the game. Nothing like that in the FHM db.

No demo at the moment. We've been trying to figure out the logistics of getting one set up, but there are a few other things that have taken precedence.

[Charlie Hough]

Originally Posted by JeffR

I've added a few non-NHLers. But there's no one in it who realistically couldn't have made the NHL, and they're rated appropriately, just as very fringe roster-filler types. I'm guessing you're thinking of experiences with some OOTP db's that include non-major leaguers that can wind up as superstars in the game. Nothing like that in the FHM db.

Sure, that makes sense, but I would advise having an option to only allow players who made the NHL to be in the database. If you want to convert some potential customers who are looking for more of a 'replay' style sim experience or a 'what if' approaching using only real life NHL players, then that would be the best way to go. It doesn't hurt to provide flexibility to accommodate all styles of play, similar to what OOTP has done. Hopefully it wouldn't be much of a coding issue to implement a toggle box to block non-NHL players from the database.