What 5 key additions mean the most to you that is still not in the game?

[Risk2014]

For me its.

1. Scouting, which lists what each player is in overall. Out of 100 overall.

2. Expansion draft, expansion team creation/reallocation.

3. Correct PIM allocation, enforcers actually fight correctly, the game recognizes goons.

4. AI recognizes star players and set up correct lines, this also should reflect in AHL and ECHL.

5. Head coach hiring, firing personnel hiring. Retired players can be hired as coaching staff.

[Orioles1966]

1.) Expansion draft/create new teams/move teams to other leagues
2.) schedule editor/ generator
3.) exhibition or tournament games(between leagues or countries)
4.) historical minor leagues
5.) 2D engine

[Zyllyx]

For me:

1. Preseason and prospect analysis and development.

2. A more intuitive UI to manage teams and affiliate systems.

3. More variable AI factors involving players, i.e.: Fan favorite status, how a player is viewed by the market's fans, a changing attribute that shows how the player is CURRENTLY affecting team chemistry, and so forth.

4. Better staff AI and ability to hire a head coach.

5. An overall team chemistry metric that is affected by GM decisions to make overall game experience more realistic (as well as a market chemistry variable that is affected similarly... also known as the Brian Burke Toronto factor).

[Risk2014]

Wow good ideas! Maybe the development team can use this thread for future features? Keep up guys.

[herzkine]

The 1-5 key addition for me would be if the features currently in the game would be working an balanced, nothing more key for me.

And yes that sadly actually would be a big addition because its badly missing at the moment.

Theres always space to dream of more but if anything this game has been too ambitious with its features already.

So thats my most key additon, but of course you may dream on, ill join a bit, for the future id really like to have things like scouting reports in only text from that makes finding talent a lot harder, key strenghts, weaknesses, special reports on mental things which arent always accurate etc.

Also abig history and statistics section with quicklinks to player and team profiles somethign to browse through in long rainy gaming nights.

Also statistics that are as easy browesabel and deep and elts you fidn out key wekanesses and strenghts in your tactics maybe

A more in depth negitiating system with other teams and players that give you a feel of really negotiating complete with "f+ck off" and never come back if you lowball too much. Maybe a realtionship meter with other GMs that make negotiatons easier /harder influenced by rivalries of teams, past negotiations etc, also for players the same, you build a history with them and your actions build a reputation with them, like benching criticizing, etc, that woudl add to the genral opinion of the team and special preferences of the player like wanting to play in US oor Canada, favourite team and so on.

Also id like quicklinks everwhere, evertime a name or soemthign even ingame comes up i want fast and easy access to the player profile

Litttle thing i always liked about EHM was also the players names an profiel backropund in team colours, immediately gives you some connection and feel .

Also always been a fan of random happenings in the game world that affect player morale or team ... media, events etc
Really cool here would be an editor for the community to write endless media events complete with effects on team and maybe choices for the Gm to react. Somethign like event a (text) , option (a ,b, c) (text), result (different things easy to acces like player morale +/- , team money +/- etc alle asy to acces and write without coding experience.
hope you ge the idea
Such an editor woula lso be awesome for ingame commentary, there could be an easy drag an drop system for example PRESET GAME SITUATION ---- CALCULATOR by attributes etc ---OUTCOME... you pick your game situation , they can be preset, i guess soemthing like this already has to be in code, like player has puck ior something, the you write your own line of text, add the different otucomes of situation with text infleunced by attributes and other modifiers like i t already work ingame and you write an outcoem text or following events. Huge immersion and a fan built database that is unbeatablke could be built with this.

Also i would like some fancy things in the game like a draft screen with a stage , palyer pics and teamlogos, i am not a guy that thinks graphics ar eimportant in games, but i really like a nice backgrpund graphic to make special events like drafts etc really special, and i think a team logo more here an there always really raises immersion into the game.

[silvam14]

I'd like some reports. Basic stat reports, prospect reports, all the stuff that can be exported to HTML. This is non-existent now

[madball]

1. Better use of enforcers/fighting
2. Scouting report (predicted role ie: third-line fwd; characteristics, etc) including a list of who's been scouted by the scout
3. Ratings for a player on each GP and overall for season
4. Head coach hiring without the workaround (which stopped me from dressing/scratching players)
5. Better balance of scores and home/away win/loss - I've had five 6+ goal losses this season as the Bruins with Rask in goal and uninjured D-corp
6. Feedback during a trade proposal rather than a simply yes/no a day or two after you've submitted it
7. More realistic contract negotiations (eg: Andrew Shaw wanting $3.5M/5yr or Carter Camper wanting a six-year deal). Everyone on my NHL roster wants at least $3M/yr and 5-7yr deals. Also getting two-way deals so that minor-league salary starts at 10%. It's always 100% and sometimes can't be edited.

#2, 3 & 6 - if you look at how EHM used to do this, that would be a start

I know that was seven....

[Big T]

Originally Posted by madball

1. Better use of enforcers/fighting
2. Scouting report (predicted role ie: third-line fwd; characteristics, etc) including a list of who's been scouted by the scout
3. Ratings for a player on each GP and overall for season
4. Head coach hiring without the workaround (which stopped me from dressing/scratching players)
5. Better balance of scores and home/away win/loss - I've had five 6+ goal losses this season as the Bruins with Rask in goal and uninjured D-corp
6. Feedback during a trade proposal rather than a simply yes/no a day or two after you've submitted it
7. More realistic contract negotiations (eg: Andrew Shaw wanting $3.5M/5yr or Carter Camper wanting a six-year deal). Everyone on my NHL roster wants at least $3M/yr and 5-7yr deals. Also getting two-way deals so that minor-league salary starts at 10%. It's always 100% and sometimes can't be edited.

#2, 3 & 6 - if you look at how EHM used to do this, that would be a start

I know that was seven....

Which two are you willing to delete ?

[PromisedPain]

1. Less crashes, less bugs, more alive world, national teams.
2. It's still too easy to trade mediocre players for stars.
3. Players still need tuning, eg. Crosby should be around 100-120 points in a season.
4. Scouting reports
5. More realistic contract negotiations

[Retteri]

1. National teams
2. Tournaments. Like "European Trophy".
3. More improved filter options. + filter to shortlist.
4. More depth in news section. Ex. Top Players of Month or something like that and more things what can be informed.
5. Pre-Game Editor. More easy and fast way to edit league settings and players/teams details. Also chance to create players.

I hope that this things are least on FHM 2015

[thepete]

Lots of great ideas. Mine are in no particular order, find all equally important.

Scouting (reports, information, scouting individual players).

Trading. Both in terms of balance and the ability to more easily shop a player (offer to all-type mechanism).

Head coach. For a simulator aiming to be realistic, your team not having one is terrible. Assistant GM is also up there as a complete must.

Better way to see who is playing well and who is not. Game reports (both in advanced stat form and easily digestible).

The interface has to be improved. It's terribly bothersome to click through menus to get where you want to go, when there's plenty of space to add direct buttons for the things you use the most. I hope hotkeys will be available at some point (Ctrl-T for tactics menu and such) but right now it's just a clickfest. Also minor things like in the roster screen just being able to click the jersey on the left to dress/scratch a player rather than right click and select it in the menu. Small things that make the game less click-y.

[Anton]

1. Expansion teams/drafts

2. Better filters

3. Slightly better contract requests/negotiations for fringe/minor league players.

4. Expansion teams/drafts

5. Expansion teams/drafts

[Penfold75]

1) Expansion teams and draft (relocation of teams as well)
2) Better Scouting and use of staff.
3) Its a controversial one but some sort of rating for a players performance.
4) Improve trading and contract negotiation
5) UI to be improved

[GMO123]

Originally Posted by Penfold75

1) Expansion teams and draft (relocation of teams as well)
2) Better Scouting and use of staff.
3) Its a controversial one but some sort of rating for a players performance.
4) Improve trading and contract negotiation
5) UI to be improved

For #3, could have a coaches report, plus a scout report if a scout is assigned to watch the game. Perhaps an assistant coach could give an opinion.

[Empach]

Here are a few things I'd be looking for:

1) Filtering! Unless I'm missing something there is only basic filtering when looking over lists of players. At the very least I'd like to see things get back up to EHM07 and then start pushing it further.
When I look at the prospects during a draft I'd like to drill down to something like players who are 18 and younger, 16+ on either wing, over 6'2, with 10+ in hitting...etc.

I did stuff like that all the time in EHM07 and the lack of filters makes things so much slower.

Additionally a paging system for lists would be ideal, maybe an optional one. Sometimes it's easier to organize things in chunks.

Also placement in lists needs to be maintained after changing filter types or clicking on a player. The game has gotten better at this but there's still too much of that.


2) A training camp, preferably much better than EHM's. Training camp is a big part of the beginning of the season, and it's where players can have a big effect on their value for the coming season.

EHM07's ultimately felt pretty hollow. I never really saw much in the way of in game effect. One idea I had recently was not showing the effects of player development/deterioration until camp. So you could have a prospect come in, "look great" and his ability and value is now upgraded. And you could have an aging vet who looked fine when you signed him in the summer but now that you have him in camp you realize he's lost a step - stuff like that. Additionally players having good/bad camps should affect their early season performance.

A coaches recommendations on who to cut/keep might be nice too, assuming the AI was up to the task.


3) Improved management AI. This is a management sim, continuous improvements to trades, signings, scouting, development, etc. should always be the goal.

One thing I hope is part of the game at some point is the effect of AI GMs. There should be smart GMs and dumb ones. Guys who favor offense over defense, GMs that like to spend big on free agents, guys who favor short term over long, etc. It shouldn't just be a flat interaction. It'd also be nice to see relationships start up, for example two GMs that like to trade with each other, and guys who hate dealing with each other based on past events and division rivals.


4) Player comparison. To my knowledge there's no player comparison feature right now which makes it tough to choose players. Again I'd like to match EHM07 and then keep pushing it further.


5) Goalie distribution. This is something I've wanted for a long time. I'd like to be able to set the use of my two goaltenders while simming. So I could have a true number one who plays 70 games, or I could have a more even split. I'd also like a performance option, so whoever is hot gets to play.


Bonus!) Player performance rating. I'd still like to see some kind of player performance rating. I generally sim weeks at a time, so I don't play the games myself, so it's very useful to look at one screen and see who's playing good or not, and then drill into the stats to decide what changes to make. The rating could even just be a (complex) summary of stats somehow rather than a separate rating of performance.
Anything that makes playing the game faster, easier to understand and more enjoyable is worthwhile to me.

[Teloch]

1) Proper scouting like mentioned several times before
2) Head coaches that actually have an effect on the team's play
3) Some sort of modular stats screen that allows me to pick what to show on which page (Seeing Age in my stats screen is probably the most irritating thing ever)
4) It's already in the game, but (again) a total overhaul to the 2D engine
5) Proper markings of PP/SH goals etc. in the boxscore

[fireholder]

Originally Posted by Risk2014

For me its.

1. Scouting, which lists what each player is in overall. Out of 100 overall.

2. Expansion draft, expansion team creation/reallocation.

3. Correct PIM allocation, enforcers actually fight correctly, the game recognizes goons.

4. AI recognizes star players and set up correct lines, this also should reflect in AHL and ECHL.

5. Head coach hiring, firing personnel hiring. Retired players can be hired as coaching staff.

"Overall" is a terrible idea (sorry!) and misrepresenting for a management sim in general, and I think the team has made it clear in the past that it won't be used. A player's value changes based on your needs, and you couldn't really compare a "72 overall" goalscorer with a "68 overall" grinder when you're looking for a PK guy, etc. A lot of "weaker" players would use overall as a crutch and then throw a fit when their high overall team fails miserably.

Also, there is the rating system in the game for ability and such (7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, etc) which even got a bit of scrutiny by the test team for being too much like an overall.

Your other suggestions are great, though, so I think you should re-use that first one for something better. I know you can!

[batdad]

1. Less clunky UI. Make it easier for example to switch lines. And not have to move between 5 pages.

2. Better sorting/filtering for players and their stats to search. Certainly an age based filter.

3. Make tactics useable and hockey strategy based.

4. Scouting -simply has to be better. Need a way to see what each scout is grading guys. So you can compare their work and decide who is good and who sucks not just based in their ratings. Plus needs to be ore obvious they are actually doing something.

5. Coaching-need a clear way to tell how the coaches are improving the players other than a screen capture 6 months apart. Need to see what and how the are teaching.


Are many other things all listed above, but these are the realistic must have ideas to make this a hockey game. The in game stuff clearly needs over better and more complex so you can tell in a game who is doing well and who is not.

Seems to be too much of a pattern in games. Oh and way too many hits posts and cross bars.

[ZBGuy]

The focus right now should be on making sure the game works properly and hardly if ever crashes if. That said, once that hurdle is completed and we can talk new features:

1. Better search options. Again, we need to be able to filter by more than position. We need search options that include age, league, contract status, nationality, attributes, things of that nature.

2. The ability to create, contract and realign leagues, conferences and divisions. (The tools to do so seem to be there already but they're not activated.)

3. Schedule editing, or at least a more in-depth way to configure how schedules are generated.

4. National teams and, hopefully, competitions for them.

5. More interaction with players and staff, and a sense that there's a story of some kind to the season. Right now, simulating through seasons is mostly barren besides adjusting lines and observing trades and all that. Thinking back to EHM, you'd run into issues with teammates clashing with each other, or the press getting angry about losing streaks or speculating on trades. It'd be neat if the game universe had the capacity to generate those kinds of stories so that it feels more alive.

I think the first two or three options are doable for this version of the game, while the latter two are probably best saved for next year's iteration. And at any rate, no new features should be concentrated on until the core game is running as best as it can.

* One tiny addendum: I haven't noticed, but do players indicate when they're going to retire (i.e. after the season)? Or do they retire suddenly and without warning on July 1?

[Ciccarelli]

Originally Posted by ZBGuy

* One tiny addendum: I haven't noticed, but do players indicate when they're going to retire (i.e. after the season)? Or do they retire suddenly and without warning on July 1?

They seem to retire on August 1st (it's viewable in the "player transactions" screen by team, but nowhere else), but then come back to "announce" their retirement next July. Yeah, it baffles me, too.