Issues with Post-Historical Replay Save

Anton · 02-28-2020, 09:50 AM

I started a file at the 72-73 season with auto evolution turned off. I kept the WHA around and expanded the league to 20 teams, while the NHL has been expanded to 22. After finishing the 'historical' part of the game, I'm in the 2027-2028 season and I've run into a couple of slight-yet-major problems:

1.) The WHA Amateur Draft has the exact same selection order every season, regardless of the final standings or playoff results. The NHL does not seem to have this same issue.

2.) Constant 'Not enough skaters to create lineup' warnings in spite of a full roster, enough healthy skaters to play, employed head coach etc. Changing a player's listed position (ie: D to RW, C to D) is the only workaround I have found and it's a fairly tedious one for someone attempting to play slightly 'hands-off' with long term sim periods.

3.) Top level prospects being stuck in the Minor Leagues on multi-million dollar contracts that WHA and NHL teams 'honor' for the entirety of their careers. A few (1-3?) full draft classes were lost to this issue during the 'historical replay' portion while 3-8 elite prospects a year fall victim to the same issues after the custom style player system started.

I have the most recent hotfix file installed.

Adam B · 02-28-2020, 10:51 AM

Probably going to need to see the save, if you could upload it please. Instructions are pinned at the top of the forum.

Anton · 02-28-2020, 01:06 PM

Save added to ftp under the name 'Anton_WHA27-28.lg.zip' . Thanks for taking the time.

JeffR · 02-29-2020, 03:04 AM

The frozen draft order's definitely a bug, we'll see what's going wrong there.

The "not enough skaters" problem looks similar to the one we just hotfixed for 19-man lineups, but not quite - I think there may be a sub-issue there with the way the game is recognizing who's a forward and who's a defenceman (currently-listed position vs. positions the player's capable of playing.) But if you switch the WHA to 18 skaters the next July 1, I think that should prevent it for now.

The problem with the prospects looks like an issue with them getting signed directly to minor league teams, which isn't supposed to ever happen in historical mode and the NHL/WHA roster AI can't deal with properly. I'm wondering if turning evolution off is breaking something there, but will have to investigate further. In the meantime, you can probably lessen the effect by increasing the contract limits in both leagues to at least 50 (or maybe even higher, it should be safe to do so since you're into fictional drafts now.) That'll make it more likely that the teams get their draftees under contract fast enough to avoid the problem. And if you go through the minor league rosters and make every player currently signed directly to a minor league team a free agent (they should be easy to spot, they're the only ones with $2m+ salaries vs. the league minimum amount), that should rescue the careers of those guys by letting them sign in the NHL/WHA.

Anton · 02-29-2020, 07:57 AM

Thanks a bunch. You guys have taken serious strides this year.

For the sake of context:
The issue with players signing in the Minors actually seems to happen BEFORE the draft, so they have normally played a full underage season with a minor league team and then become eligible to be drafted. Editing would obviously still work on an individual basis.

Anton · 03-06-2020, 09:12 AM

I'm still playing this save and I tried expanding the WHA again for the first time since the switch over from historical to custom and I've run into a few more issues. The team I expanded the league with was not given a farm team automatically like in typical historical mode play. After simming a full season and making it back to July 1st (I didn't notice the error right away), I tried manually adding a farm team and discovered that I couldn't add any teams manually to the generic minor leagues, the add farm team option was missing completely from all WHA teams and that, while the NHL does have that tab available, only the WHA teams were listed as potential farm teams for said NHL teams. I'm willing to upload another save if this is something that you'd like to have a look at again.

02-28-2020, 09:50 AM	#1
Anton Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 132	Issues with Post-Historical Replay Save I started a file at the 72-73 season with auto evolution turned off. I kept the WHA around and expanded the league to 20 teams, while the NHL has been expanded to 22. After finishing the 'historical' part of the game, I'm in the 2027-2028 season and I've run into a couple of slight-yet-major problems: 1.) The WHA Amateur Draft has the exact same selection order every season, regardless of the final standings or playoff results. The NHL does not seem to have this same issue. 2.) Constant 'Not enough skaters to create lineup' warnings in spite of a full roster, enough healthy skaters to play, employed head coach etc. Changing a player's listed position (ie: D to RW, C to D) is the only workaround I have found and it's a fairly tedious one for someone attempting to play slightly 'hands-off' with long term sim periods. 3.) Top level prospects being stuck in the Minor Leagues on multi-million dollar contracts that WHA and NHL teams 'honor' for the entirety of their careers. A few (1-3?) full draft classes were lost to this issue during the 'historical replay' portion while 3-8 elite prospects a year fall victim to the same issues after the custom style player system started. I have the most recent hotfix file installed.

02-28-2020, 10:51 AM	#2
Adam B Hockey Community Manager Join Date: Dec 2015 Location: A Hockey Rink Posts: 2,369	Probably going to need to see the save, if you could upload it please. Instructions are pinned at the top of the forum.

02-28-2020, 01:06 PM	#3
Anton Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 132	Save added to ftp under the name 'Anton_WHA27-28.lg.zip' . Thanks for taking the time.

02-29-2020, 03:04 AM	#4
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 16,623	The frozen draft order's definitely a bug, we'll see what's going wrong there. The "not enough skaters" problem looks similar to the one we just hotfixed for 19-man lineups, but not quite - I think there may be a sub-issue there with the way the game is recognizing who's a forward and who's a defenceman (currently-listed position vs. positions the player's capable of playing.) But if you switch the WHA to 18 skaters the next July 1, I think that should prevent it for now. The problem with the prospects looks like an issue with them getting signed directly to minor league teams, which isn't supposed to ever happen in historical mode and the NHL/WHA roster AI can't deal with properly. I'm wondering if turning evolution off is breaking something there, but will have to investigate further. In the meantime, you can probably lessen the effect by increasing the contract limits in both leagues to at least 50 (or maybe even higher, it should be safe to do so since you're into fictional drafts now.) That'll make it more likely that the teams get their draftees under contract fast enough to avoid the problem. And if you go through the minor league rosters and make every player currently signed directly to a minor league team a free agent (they should be easy to spot, they're the only ones with $2m+ salaries vs. the league minimum amount), that should rescue the careers of those guys by letting them sign in the NHL/WHA.

02-29-2020, 07:57 AM	#5
Anton Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 132	Thanks a bunch. You guys have taken serious strides this year. For the sake of context: The issue with players signing in the Minors actually seems to happen BEFORE the draft, so they have normally played a full underage season with a minor league team and then become eligible to be drafted. Editing would obviously still work on an individual basis.

03-06-2020, 09:12 AM	#6
Anton Minors (Double A) Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 132	I'm still playing this save and I tried expanding the WHA again for the first time since the switch over from historical to custom and I've run into a few more issues. The team I expanded the league with was not given a farm team automatically like in typical historical mode play. After simming a full season and making it back to July 1st (I didn't notice the error right away), I tried manually adding a farm team and discovered that I couldn't add any teams manually to the generic minor leagues, the add farm team option was missing completely from all WHA teams and that, while the NHL does have that tab available, only the WHA teams were listed as potential farm teams for said NHL teams. I'm willing to upload another save if this is something that you'd like to have a look at again.