The Bug Report Thread

[StrikeFour]

Originally Posted by jh95

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

When I start a new game least 50 percent of the players on any team have contracts with a lenght of 4 or more years.

In my opinion this is not realistic.
The average contract length should be 3 or less years.

The 4, 5 and 6 year contracts are especially annoying if a weak/useless player has it.

Of course you can change it manually but a more realistic auto-setup of the contract-length would be very helpful.

Thank you!

I have noticed that as well. Some of my Capitals players who played just 6 games (1990-91 replay) are multi-millionaires. Seriously? I also changed it manually.

[StrikeFour]

I have seen this several times. Jeff, would this be a data issue? I hope I put this in the proper section.

[StrikeFour]

Originally Posted by jslmsca

This has probably already been mentioned, but players on IR are unhappy due to 'Insufficient Playing Time'. I can't help it if you're out for 5 months!

Maybe unhappy due to being 'injured'?

Once again. I have seen this. There are some seriously disgruntled hockey players in this game, especially when put on the reserve list. They get paid the same, right? Sent to the minors, I can see them being angry. Angry at being injured? Hmmmmm....

edit: G Don Beaupre seems to be happy he is injured. Probably laughing at home about how bad his team is doing w/o him.

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

I started my historic game in 1980.
Since then the playoff-format did not change.
In the 1985 playoffs the format is still the one from 1979-80!
It should have changed to the 1981-82 Format as described below.
I did not change any settings manually in the league setup.

I got this info from nhl.com (http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=25433) about history of Playoff Formats:

1979-80 - With the addition of four WHA franchises, the League expanded its playoff structure to include 16 of its 21 teams. The four first place teams in the four divisions automatically earned playoff berths. Among the 17 other clubs, the top 12, according to regular-season record, also earned berths. All 16 teams were then pooled together and ranked #1 to #16 based on regular-season record:
Series A: Team #1 vs Team #16 (best-of-five)
Series B: Team #2 vs Team #15 (best-of-five)
Series C: Team #3 vs Team #14 (best-of-five)
Series D: Team #4 vs Team #13 (best-of-five)
Series E: Team #5 vs Team #12 (best-of-five)
Series F: Team #6 vs Team #11 (best-of-five)
Series G: Team #7 vs Team #10 (best-of-five)
Series H: Team #8 vs Team #9 (best-of-five) The eight Preliminary round winners, ranked #1 to #8 based on regular-season record, moved on to the Quarterfinals:
Series I: Team #1 vs Team #8 (best-of-seven)
Series J: Team #2 vs Team #7 (best-of-seven)
Series K: Team #3 vs Team #6 (best-of-seven)
Series L: Team #4 vs Team #5 (best-of-seven) The eight Quarterfinals winners, ranked #1 to #4 based on regular-season record, moved on to the semifinals:
Series M: Team #1 vs Team #4 (best-of-seven)
Series N: Team #2 vs Team #3 (best-of-seven)
Series O: Winner of Series M vs winner of Series N (best-of-seven)

1981-82 - The first four teams in each division earned playoff berths. In each division, the first-place team opposed the fourth-place team and the second-place team opposed the third-place team in a best-of-five Division Semifinal (DSF) series. In each division, the two winners of the DSF met in a best-of-seven Division Final (DF) series. The two winners in each conference met in a best-of-seven Conference Final (CF) series. In the Prince of Wales Conference, the Adams Division winner opposed the Patrick Division winner; in the Clarence Campbell Conference, the Smythe Division winner opposed the Norris Division winner. The two CF winners met in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final (F) series.
1986-87 - Division Semifinal series changed from best-of-five to best-of-seven.

[jslmsca]

Although my crash is not reproducible, I did save a crash dump before closing the application.

Would that be of interest to you folks? I could upload it to the FTP for examination.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by StrikeFour

I have seen this several times. Jeff, would this be a data issue? I hope I put this in the proper section.

Hmm, that's Jay Wells, right? I can't see anything wrong with his data. I'll keep an eye out for that in my next historical text, but if you notice any common thread between the guys it's happening too, let me know.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by jslmsca

Although my crash is not reproducible, I did save a crash dump before closing the application.

Would that be of interest to you folks? I could upload it to the FTP for examination.

I don't think the guys will be able to tell much from it, but it's worth a try.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by jh95

Historic Mode 1.1.13:

Another thing which is a major bug in the historic mode is the limit of 50 players on the "Protected List".

I know that there is/was a limit of 50 contracted players.
You are including drafted/unsigned players in the list.

For me this view "Protected List" should be replaced by "Reserve List" and the limit should be increased to 90 Players.

The problem is, in historical mode the protected list has to apply to a variety of different eras, not just the modern 90-man rights list one. In the early part of the period covered by the game, there were mechanisms like the the reverse and inter-league drafts to prevent teams from stockpiling player rights, and those aren't present in the game (nor is the possibility of NHL teams selling/trading their players to minor league teams) So limiting the protected list to 50 allows some mobility for the bottom of the talent pool during those years. However, now that I think about it, there's a separate set of historical rules for each year, so I should be able to increase the limit in modern-era seasons where that's not a consideration. I'll give that a try.

Thanks for the other reports, too, I've added several bug reports to our list based on them.

[jslmsca]

A couple things with the draft...

A news report said Los Angeles won the draft lottery but the order remained true to the standings both in the new report and during the draft, while Los Angeles picked 9th.

When I filter by potential and then look at a player card, once I leave the player card, the filtering reverts back to the position. This is also true when clicking on 'Next Pick'.

The player card for Goaltenders in the draft show ratings as if they were a position player. You can't see their goalie ratings.

When you cycle through a list of players in the draft using the << >> buttons on the player card, if you encounter a player you haven't scouted that doesn't have extending ratings, the player card will show the same ratings as the previous player you looked at. This leaves the wrong impression of what that player's ratings really are.

[StrikeFour]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Hmm, that's Jay Wells, right? I can't see anything wrong with his data. I'll keep an eye out for that in my next historical text, but if you notice any common thread between the guys it's happening too, let me know.

Oh, I meant that his name doesn't show up like the other guy's name. Or is that the way it does it?

[mattygabe]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Have you noticed it happening only/more frequently after a certain point in time? That's similar to issues other people have reported happening in the off-season period following free agency. Added to the bug list, in any case.



We've managed to cut down the frequency with which that occurs by quite a bit, but it's still happening, and seems to be system-specific - mine hasn't done it in months (after being nearly constant), but other people report it happening often. One possibility: other applications hijacking the ESC key. Photoshop, for one, is known to do it, but I doubt many people would be running the game with that open.



Carrier's actually a database error - he didn't sign with the Caps and is attending McGill this year, and had been removed from his QMJHL team but not moved onto the McGill roster yet, and was mistakenly left with Caps rights despite being a UFA with no team. I've updated him now, no NHL rights and on the proper team.



Yeah, both are known bugs, but the amount of work it'll take to fix them hasn't gotten them prioritized over more serious and/or easier-to-fix issues yet. But they'll get corrected.



I think we'll just wind up removing that, it's redundant with the menu on the other page anyhow, and would allow more news to be displayed.



Can you show me a screenshot of what you're seeing? I get the same-sized spacing and filter box regardless of resolution and windowed/fullscreen settings.



It's actually the 5-on-5 lines that weren't allowing swapping, the power play ones were doing it properly - fixed in the next patch.



There's no position bias in the injury system, but I'll have a look through the injury histories in some multi-season games to see if there's something odd going on with defencemen.

As you can see here in red, on the smallest resolution of about 1024px wide, in order to check or uncheck all six positions, my mouse must travel about 800 pixels in a horizontal fashion, which is generally an uncomfortable UX experience - taking six rows to perform the same thing (approximate height shown in green) would take about 25% of the same screen travel. This would require re-ordering the filter screen, but I think generally grouping like items that will be toggled together vertically makes more sense visually. If I'm unchecking Right Wing, there's a high probability I'll want to flip at LEAST one of the other positions (I usually only want to filter on a single position). If I'm toggling Min Ability, I probably want to toggle Max Ability. Same with Min/Max Age and Potential. Put the like-minded pairs together vertically, then fit them in together horizontally.

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

You explained in "Game Systems: Historical Play" what the setting "Generate at 17" with value "Off" should do:
"3. Draft on, Generate at 17 off:
Players will appear in the season in which their rights were first owned by an NHL team, and will go through the draft before being signable.
This will result in most modern players appearing at 18, when they were drafted, but a late-blooming free agent signee like Adam Oates won't arrive until he's 23.
This setting is useful if you want to have a draft, but don't want to include players that may not make sense historically - for example, Eastern Bloc players prior to the 1990's (while building the database, I ignored the speculative drafting of undefected Soviet and Czechoslovak players,
so although Sergei Makarov was drafted by Calgary in 1983, he won't show up in the league under these settings until 1989, his "rookie" year.)"

I started a game in 1980 with the setting "Entry Draft" turned on and "Generate at 17" turned off.

The current date in the game is August 15ht, 1986.

I have two players to show the issue and in reality the following two signing happened:
January 31st, 1983: Calgary Flames signed D Jamie Macoun as a free agent.
June 28th, 1985: Detroit Red Wings singed C Adam Oates.

Both players exists in my game in 1986 (Adam Oates first appeared correctly in 1985).

But they nobody can sign them as free agents.

They are now useless players in the game.

The problem is that both players are generated with the value "None" in the attribute "League Rights -> NHL" (which can be seen in the "Commissoner Mode" under "Edit Player").

They should both have "Free" as a value in this attribute and then they could be signed as free agents by any NHL team.

Of course I can manually change this attribute in "Commissoner Mode" but it would be easier if it would be correctly set initially.

Thanks for the previous info that my posts are helpful and that some were added to an issue list...

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

To clarify, I know you did not implement the specical rules for each Expansion Draft and I expect them to be there in some future versions of FHM (and I mean versions not patches of FHM 2014).

But some tweaks or general rules would make it instanlty more realistic and the game more playable:

ISSUE 1: A team should only lose as many players as there are expansion teams in the draft!

For example in 1991 each team could only lose 1 player to San Jose.
I looked for the specific rules for the 1991 Expansion Draft and found this in Wikipedia:

Expansion Draft: The other 20 teams in the league were allowed to protect two goaltenders and 16 skaters. The Sharks and North Stars would take turns selecting from the pool of unprotected players until each had chosen ten players. 20 total players would be selected, one from each franchise.

Same in the 1992 Expansion Draft (also from Wikipedia):

21 of the 22 franchises in the league at the time of the draft were allowed to protect two goaltenders and fourteen position players (the San Jose Sharks were the only team exempt of protection restrictions as they were an expansion team the previous season). Beyond that, every team had to make available at least one goaltender who had played at least one game in the 1991–92 NHL season. This clause (known to the league teams far in advance) led to several trades so that teams could fulfill the requirement without exposing their two lead goaltenders. It also led to anomalies such as Ray LeBlanc (the star of the 1992 United States Olympic team) being put into the only NHL game of his career so that the Chicago Blackhawks could expose him, and therefore would not have to expose Ed Belfour, Dominik Hasek or Jimmy Waite.
There were 42 players selected in the draft, two from each participating franchise. The Lightning and Senators were each to pick two goaltenders, seven defensemen and twelve forwards.

I do not want you to implement the special rules now.

But the game would be much more realistic if this rule of a team losing only a specific max. number of players depending on the number of Expansion teams would be implemented.

And it does not matter to which Expansion team the players are lost, e.g. Ottawa could take both players from your team and Tampa Bay none.

ISSUE 2: Currently players contracted by the team which have not played NHL games have to be also protected in the Expansion Draft.
In reality all first and second year players did not have to be protected.
There was also a rule that players not having played a minimum of X NHL games did not have to be protected as well.

ISSUE 3: Currently you do NOT have to protect players which contract ran out and which are listed in the "Reserve List".

To clarify, I mean the players which previously had signed a NHL contract and I do not mean unsigned draft picks.

This is a "loophole": I just let contracts run out, then I do not have to protect the players in the Expansion Draft and after it I re-sign the players.

Fixing these 3 issues would make the Expansion Draft much more realistic.

Maybe you can fix this in FHM 2014 or in the next version FHM 2015.

In the long run I hope all Expansion and Dispersal Drafts are getting implemented with the original rules (the information can be found in the web).

Thanks and I hope the issues are not duplicates!

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

There is a problem with the seeding of the Expansion teams in their first year of existance.

HINT: The NHL Draft Lottery was first done in 1995.
So the positions of the Expansion teams could be hard-coded in the game for the first Entry Drafts.

NHL 1991 Entry Draft:

FHM: San Jose is seed 1st in the first round.

REALITY: In the first round San Jose picked 2nd. Each following round San Jose picked 1st.

NHL 1992 Entry Draft:
FHM: Ottawa picks 15th in the first and following rounds.

REALITY: In the first round Ottawa picked 2nd -> Each following round Ottawa and Tampa Bay switched positions.

FHM: Tampa Bay picks 16th in the first and following rounds.

REALITY: In the first round Tampa Bay picked 1st -> Each following round Ottawa and Tampa Bay switched positions.

NHL 1993 Entry Draft:

FHM: Anaheim picks 19th.
REALITY: In the first round Anaheim picked 4th -> Stayed at the same positions (4th) for each following round.

FHM: Florida picks 23rd.
REALITY: In the first round Florida picked 5th -> Stayed at the same positions (5th) for each following round.

I just checked these three, did not check later or earlier Entry Drafts with first year teams.

UPDATE:
The order for the 1967 Draft (after the 6 Team Expansion) is completly wrong.
The 6 Expansion teams pick 7th to 12th instead of 1st to 6th. The order can be retrieved from the web and be hard-coded.

[jslmsca]

I uploaded my saved game called "trade_offer_crash.zip" which is reproducible. I included reproducible steps in the .zip file but here they are as well:

1. Load game.
2. League Menu > Trading Block
3. Scroll down and click on Bobby Ryan.
4. Click on 'Action' and 'Make Trade Offer'.

CRASH!

[StrikeFour]

I'll let the pics do the talking:



and;



and finally;



I guess the custom game feature needs some work.

Will there be a database for names from Iceland? Bob Smith doesn't sound right. lol

[StrikeFour]

Here's some more for your viewing pleasure! This was AFTER I let the CPU draft for the league. BTW, there are 6 teams in the real league, not 5 like FHM has.

Icelandic Hockey League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



and;



and finally!

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:

July 1st, 1968:
I checked out the players available for the 1968 NHL Amateur Draft.
Then I looked at existing free agents.

20 year-old G Gary Edwards exists in the free agent pool but cannot be signed.
This is historically correct.

But the problem is that this player should be in the pool of players available for the 1968 NHL Amateur Draft.

In reality G Gary Edwards was drafted in 1968 in the 1st round 6th overall by St. Louis.

I am not sure how you determine players which players are available in which draft.
Does it depend on the date of birth or is it a flag set by FHM in the database?

So it is impossible for me to tell if this is a "Data Issue" or a programming bug.

Anyway, I hope this helps also fixing other problems with players not being in the pool of draftable players in the respective draft years.

Thanks!

[jh95]

Historic Mode 1.3.13:


July 1st, 1968:
One of the players available in the FHM 1968 Draft is RW Rene Robert.



This is historically incorrect:
He was signed March 20th, 1968 by Toronto and so should be under contract to Toronto at the time.

[jslmsca]

Another crash. jslmsca_fhm2014_crash.zip uploaded to the FTP site.

Steps to reproduce:

1) Load game.
2) Team Menu > Roster Overview
3) Click on "Frederik Andersen", the first player/goalie in the list.
4) Click on the "CONTRACT" tab.

CRASH!