Schedule generator changes

jbaumgardt1 · 09-23-2017, 11:24 AM

What changes have been made to the schedule generator? I saw you said it had been improved to accommodate more league structures.

JeffR · 09-23-2017, 12:57 PM

It's better at avoiding things like teams having long gaps without playing, or excessive numbers of games being played in a short period. That lets us allow custom league structures, where before we were limited to pre-set structures and schedules, since generated schedules wouldn't have been good enough to be usable (to make league expansion in previous versions work, we cheated around this by generating a large number of schedules for each possible expanded format and cherry-picking the least-flawed one.)

Sebastian Palkowski · 09-23-2017, 03:28 PM

I basically wrote it new from the ground up. The old one had many flaws and did not really work. The new one, not perfect but a big step up over the old one, not only works better (it pre-calculates the weeks of play and then uses that span for scheduling games, before it just scheduled games as long as needed so in the end there were always big gaps for some teams, but also can handle much more situations. Malte also did write the round robin schedule new (mostly used in European leagues), so going forward we should have a pretty good basis to build on.

Unfortunately we did not have enough time to use it as much as I wished but we were able to add custom league setups in fictional and the generated schedules in expansion should be better as well now. In future versions it gives us the chance to really add more league customization (e.g. I would love to have the option for the user to add a new league(s) to the real world setup, so you can combine fictional play with the real world, in addition to much more freedom for real league editing as well; but for now that is just a wish by myself, we will see when we have the resources to add it).

DirkGildun · 09-24-2017, 08:41 AM

In FHM4, is there (or will there be) a way to manually edit or import a schedule for a fictional league? I've been waiting for this ability since FHM2 with some of its terribly illogical fictional league schedules.

Sebastian Palkowski · 09-24-2017, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DirkGildun

In FHM4, is there (or will there be) a way to manually edit or import a schedule for a fictional league? I've been waiting for this ability since FHM2 with some of its terribly illogical fictional league schedules.

In theory that is (and always was) possible: the game first looks through all the existing generic schedules and compares the header with the league in question: if it finds a fit, it will take it. So if you edit or create a schedule in the used format, it will use it. If it does not find a fit, it will use the (now new) schedule generator instead.

DirkGildun · 09-24-2017, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

In theory that is (and always was) possible: the game first looks through all the existing generic schedules and compares the header with the league in question: if it finds a fit, it will take it. So if you edit or create a schedule in the used format, it will use it. If it does not find a fit, it will use the (now new) schedule generator instead.

If there isn't an existing generic schedule that matches the one I want (an eight-team fictional league playing 42 games -- each team playing 3 home/3 road games vs each of the other 7 teams), will the new schedule generator create such a schedule and/or create a similar schedule that will be editable?

FHM2 (the last version I have) didn't allow me to do what you're suggesting.

JeffR · 09-25-2017, 03:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DirkGildun

If there isn't an existing generic schedule that matches the one I want (an eight-team fictional league playing 42 games -- each team playing 3 home/3 road games vs each of the other 7 teams), will the new schedule generator create such a schedule and/or create a similar schedule that will be editable?

FHM2 (the last version I have) didn't allow me to do what you're suggesting.

You can only specify the schedule length, not the exact number of games against each team (although in this case it would obviously be 6), and it wouldn't be editable, but other than that, yes.

jbaumgardt1 · 09-25-2017, 03:37 PM

So will generated schedules almost always follow close to a round robin format even for some of the larger custom leagues? I noticed in FHM3 teams would get scheduled with no interconferance, few divisional, and very heavily intra-conference cross divisional games. This scenario bothered me enough to where I didn't even want to use those league formats. Has this been improved in FHM4?

JeffR · 09-25-2017, 08:33 PM

Actually, looks like they added some inter-division/conference scheduling options to today's test build. Haven't had a chance to try them yet, though.

09-23-2017, 11:24 AM	#1
jbaumgardt1 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 75	Schedule generator changes What changes have been made to the schedule generator? I saw you said it had been improved to accommodate more league structures.

09-23-2017, 03:28 PM	#3
Sebastian Palkowski Developer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Hamburg, Germany Posts: 5,114	I basically wrote it new from the ground up. The old one had many flaws and did not really work. The new one, not perfect but a big step up over the old one, not only works better (it pre-calculates the weeks of play and then uses that span for scheduling games, before it just scheduled games as long as needed so in the end there were always big gaps for some teams, but also can handle much more situations. Malte also did write the round robin schedule new (mostly used in European leagues), so going forward we should have a pretty good basis to build on. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to use it as much as I wished but we were able to add custom league setups in fictional and the generated schedules in expansion should be better as well now. In future versions it gives us the chance to really add more league customization (e.g. I would love to have the option for the user to add a new league(s) to the real world setup, so you can combine fictional play with the real world, in addition to much more freedom for real league editing as well; but for now that is just a wish by myself, we will see when we have the resources to add it). __________________ Buy Franchise Hockey Manager 10

09-23-2017, 12:57 PM	#2
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 16,623	It's better at avoiding things like teams having long gaps without playing, or excessive numbers of games being played in a short period. That lets us allow custom league structures, where before we were limited to pre-set structures and schedules, since generated schedules wouldn't have been good enough to be usable (to make league expansion in previous versions work, we cheated around this by generating a large number of schedules for each possible expanded format and cherry-picking the least-flawed one.)

09-24-2017, 08:41 AM	#4
DirkGildun Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 76	In FHM4, is there (or will there be) a way to manually edit or import a schedule for a fictional league? I've been waiting for this ability since FHM2 with some of its terribly illogical fictional league schedules.

09-25-2017, 03:37 PM	#8
jbaumgardt1 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 75	So will generated schedules almost always follow close to a round robin format even for some of the larger custom leagues? I noticed in FHM3 teams would get scheduled with no interconferance, few divisional, and very heavily intra-conference cross divisional games. This scenario bothered me enough to where I didn't even want to use those league formats. Has this been improved in FHM4?

09-25-2017, 08:33 PM	#9
JeffR FHM Producer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Kelowna, BC Posts: 16,623	Actually, looks like they added some inter-division/conference scheduling options to today's test build. Haven't had a chance to try them yet, though.