My feedback for FHM7 (OP continuously updated)

[Irr11]

- The trading system can be too easily exploited. For example, no team should take a player that was just on waivers. I've done this all season long: claim a waived player and flip him immediately for draft picks. I've accumulated 19 (!) picks for the upcoming draft, 5 alone in the first round (screenshot here says 4 because it's an older one).



And I'm not even a rebuilder, I lead the league by 10 pts. Three reasons for this:
1) Waiver-players should be untradeable for a few months.
2) Players on expiring contracts have too much value on draft day. I could trade 40-year olds and AHLers with one week left on their contract for a 4th round pick.
3) LTIR players/Bad contracts have even more negative value than in real life. One of the reasons for my wealth is that I took all of them:



- There's no way to exit a game without saving (unless you kill it in the task manager). That's weird for a videogame in 2020.

- NHLers should be eligible for Olympic rosters again, like in real life

- The salary cap doesn't apply in the NHL playoffs. Is it possible to have that in the game?

- The picks of the NHL Draft should be shown by rounds. For example, I want to know which teams pick early in the 5th round. I don't always want to do the math 4x31 and scroll down.

- In the tactics screen for 4-on-4 and 3-on-3, there are still some 5-on-5 options available, like 2-3, 1-2-1-1, etc. That doesn't make sense when there are less players on the ice, it should be adjusted accordingly.

- Also, the powerplay should have more powerplay-specific options. If I play with Ovechkin or Pastrnak on my team, I want to assign them as my shooter.

- In the 3-on-3 lineup, the middle field says "Forward" but "D":


- Jean-Luc Foudy (2020 draft) is listed as RD, but he's a forward (C/RW)

- AI teams rely too much on the hotter goalie and/or stats. Too many backups have become the starter in my game, it's not realistic. It can't be that AI Boston starts Maxime Lagacé (at H0 no less!) over Tuukka Rask.

- In international tournaments, the AI always changes my starting goalie. In my lineup, I have Goalie X as starter. "Lock Settings" is selected. But in the pre-game screen, Goalie Y is suddenly the starter and I must always change it back manually. That's probably also the reason why CPU teams play with a weaker goalie so often. It often happens that they start a 3* goalie and leave a 5* goalie on the bench.

- We can only play with a 12+8 lineup, but it should also be possible to play with 13+7

- In the search screen, I'd like to be able to sort players by their role ratings. For example, I want to see who has the highest value as "Counterattacking Foward", or who as "Shutdown Defenseman", etc

- I'd like to be able to create my own preseason schedule

- "New team" can't be automatically a reason for bad mood. There are many cases where players who are happy to change team. If anything, the game should differentiate between transfers. Example: Positive = from rebuilder to contender, moving to a higher league, from junior to pros. Negative = from contender to rebuilder, demotion, out of the NHL.

- This bug here exists in international tournaments. Also, you can't start a tournament with too few players. If I can't remove a healthy player during a tournament, fair enough; however, there should be an option to add players during the tournaments, e.g. at the Worlds players who were eliminated from the NHL playoffs. Also, I can't have more than 20 players (yet CPU teams have 22, check that thread), but national teams also have healthy scratches.

- The 2020 Worlds and WJC should have the correct groups and schedule (or I guess 2021 when FHM7 is released)

- The WJC relegation round is in the game a single match, but in reality it's played as Best of 3 series

- Overtime at the Worlds is played endlessly (NHL style), but in reality it goes to a shootout after one OT period

- Future Worlds and WJCs don't have the correct hosts, even though they're known until 2025

- Nolan Foote's first nationality should be Canada, he played for Canada at the WJC. Bobby Brink plays for Canada in the game, but for USA in real life.

- International tournaments should also exist in historical game. Okay, maybe not in every year, that would take forever to build such a database. But maybe just add the big tournaments with NHL participation: Olympics between 1998 and 2014 + the Summit Series/Canada Cups/WCHs. For minor nations, such as Italy or Belarus, simply create the 23-man roster from the tournament (or program the game to create 23 fake players of that nation when you start a game)

- If I can take over a new club team in the middle of a savegame, I should also be able to do that with a national team

- Adding a new GM should also be possible in an offline game

- National team rosters should be saved between the tournaments, not emptied. Saved lineups don't work with national teams, even if the same 23 players return.

- A player does not need to pass through waivers if the player has not been on the NHL active roster for a cumulative 30 days since last clearing waivers, and has not played in 10 or more NHL games. CBA Reference 13.2(b) - this is not the case in the game, demotions always require waivers

- The player search screen is veeery rudimentary, the filters should include much more variables. Random example: I want to search for a LW who has at least 14 in Offensive Read, at least 12 in Checking, and has a cap hit of max 5M. Also, it should be possible to save a search, so I don't always need to set the filters again.

- It should be possible to double-shift players. For example, I want a guy on the 1st and 2nd PP unit. Right now, this is not possible, a player can only appear in one spot.

The latter six things work in Eastside Hockey Manager, which is an older game, so it's possible

- And this one existed in the old EA Sports Football/Soccer Manager: you could "talk" to players, i.e. you had standard sentences you could tell them. For example, "great game". Usually, this would increase the mood of the player, but it could also make him complacent. Or "I expect more from you!". Depending on how he can handle criticism (and I think this rating exists in FHM), he'd either be offended or it'd increase his motivation to be better next time. There were many more of these interactions that would affect the mood of the players, but you still had to be careful: for example, if you repeated a motivational sentence too often, it'd get annoying and thus have a reverse effect.
There was also the option to say something to your team before a game, especially before rivalries, which would fit well with FHM6's new feature. It increased their intensity for that game. You could also talk at half-time. If you were down by a few goals you could yell at them and it'd fire them up.
And you also had the option "this is the game of the year!", which you could use only once per season but the effect was like the mushroom in Super Mario.
In summary: I miss interacting with players in FHM.

[Irr11]

Can someone from OOTP please confirm that they read this and will at least address the obvious mistakes? (i.e. rules, nationalities, etc - not talking about the things that are simply my opinion)

[croatian]

Originally Posted by Irr11

e week left on their contract for a 4th round





- "New team" can't be automatically a reason for bad mood. There are many cases where players who are happy to change team. If anything, the game should differentiate between transfers. Example: Positive = from rebuilder to contender, moving to a higher league, from junior to pros. Negative = from contender to rebuilder, demotion, out of the NHL.

While I agree on this, this has to be executed cautiously because I doubt Prokhorkin is too sad to leave NHL for big contract in KHL. Last thing I want in the game to sign some top player for my xy euro team just to see him sad

[Sebastian Palkowski]

We read every post on this board (and all the other sources like FB, Discord, ...) and make notes to fix bugs, tweak stuff and add new things.

I can already say that some things from your list are already done in FHM7 and I will look into some of the mentioned things this week to see if we can fix/tweak it, so please keep it coming, feedback helps us a lot to continue improving FHM with every new update/new version. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Irr11

Can someone from OOTP please confirm that they read this and will at least address the obvious mistakes? (i.e. rules, nationalities, etc - not talking about the things that are simply my opinion)

[Irr11]

Originally Posted by croatian

While I agree on this, this has to be executed cautiously because I doubt Prokhorkin is too sad to leave NHL for big contract in KHL. Last thing I want in the game to sign some top player for my xy euro team just to see him sad

That's right, I meant assuming he doesn't get any offers, or a tryout at best

[croatian]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Palkowski

We read every post on this board (and all the other sources like FB, Discord, ...) and make notes to fix bugs, tweak stuff and add new things.

I can already say that some things from your list are already done in FHM7 and I will look into some of the mentioned things this week to see if we can fix/tweak it, so please keep it coming, feedback helps us a lot to continue improving FHM with every new update/new version. Thanks!

And I hope another thing is corrected in FHM 7. If you see my posts you will see it I mentioned several times - when you manage national team, you should be able to see attributes for players that are on your roster, not just star rating.

[Irr11]

Yeah I wish managing national teams was at the same level like club teams

[Argonaut]

I'm not sure Game Rating is really working as intended. I tend to see just the high-rated players (in terms of stars) and those that get the most ice-time benefit from a high Game Rating. Most of the rest of players will hover in the mid 50s with no discernible difference between them.

An example: Gaetan Duchesne surprised me with a nomination for the Selke as my 4th Line LW backchecking forward. I then looked into his stats and found his GA/60 was one of the best in the league, and I'm sure his TK/60 was best in the league though I don't think that's available as a stat. He maintained a +16 rating despite playing against opposing top lines and being prioritized for defensive faceoffs. And he was a part of the league's best PK unit.

So the Selke nomination was warranted. But yet he maintained a middling 50s Game Rating, even the defensive one. Must have been his lack of quantity of icetime, though I'm sure all of his minutes were high pressure. But if he can't get a good GR for that performance as a backchecking forward, then what is the GR for? There's other examples like this I'm sure.

EDIT: Just saw Duchense won the Selke so there's definitely something off, and I think it's the Game Rating.

[#4BobbyOrr]

Originally Posted by Argonaut

I'm not sure Game Rating is really working as intended. I tend to see just the high-rated players (in terms of stars) and those that get the most ice-time benefit from a high Game Rating. Most of the rest of players will hover in the mid 50s with no discernible difference between them.

An example: Gaetan Duchesne surprised me with a nomination for the Selke as my 4th Line LW backchecking forward. I then looked into his stats and found his GA/60 was one of the best in the league, and I'm sure his TK/60 was best in the league though I don't think that's available as a stat. He maintained a +16 rating despite playing against opposing top lines and being prioritized for defensive faceoffs. And he was a part of the league's best PK unit.

So the Selke nomination was warranted. But yet he maintained a middling 50s Game Rating, even the defensive one. Must have been his lack of quantity of icetime, though I'm sure all of his minutes were high pressure. But if he can't get a good GR for that performance as a backchecking forward, then what is the GR for? There's other examples like this I'm sure.

EDIT: Just saw Duchense won the Selke so there's definitely something off, and I think it's the Game Rating.

Agreed about the game rating. Also I am not 100% sure but it appears that the Hart trophy every season just goes to the player who has a 5 star rating with the highest average game rating, it has nothing to do with who was the most valuable or even who had the best season (it always seems to go to McDavid in my saves, regardless of what numbers he puts up).

One bit of feedback that I have is around the PP and how a 4 forward set up never seems to work properly. If you use a 4th forward whoever is assigned one of the point roles does not produce. So you’ll see teams like the Pens and Leafs who have either Malkin or Matthews at the point on the first unit and their numbers suffer greatly because of it. Also it would be good if the AI just picked the most talented players to play on the PP and not worry about their 5 on 5 role. Just because Barkov (or whoever) is playing a defensive role 5 on 5, doesn’t mean they won’t be on the first PP unit.

[sprague]

Ok I will bite and add my suggestions here. I bought the game few weeks ago as a test, just to see where it is at.


On the good news side there has been a lot of improvement since FHM4 the last one I tried out, they have gone into a bit more depth and that is quite a good thing. Granted I am looking into only the historical game, but the view will be roughly the same for it all.


There are a lot of suggestions...some small, some large and here are a few


Ability to unretire a player if we wish, especially historical a guy played till he was 40 but retires at 34 and there is no way to unretire him.

Would help to take over a team like OOTP lets you to initate a trade or whatnot (but not actually have to become the GM and fire them) just as ootp does "act as" and then you can do what needs to be done and then click back out.

While in commissioner mode, and not having a team to GM you should be able still to move things around. Right now you can not alter a job of a staff member on teams, most aspects of what you can do with players are all greyed out. In commissioner mode you should have access to all buttons and options available, nothing for the players or staff should be unable to click into.

A positive is the great complexity of the ratings, tactics and whatnot- a minus is the complexity of the ratings, tactics and whatnot. I dont think much can really change here, but so many ratings can make is very hard to really gage if a player is really better than another.

Assist values tend to be a bit low as I play through in many cases...that might be just co incidence but I have looked at a 20 year period and as I say assist totals tend to be off for the top assist getters.

Referees should be a part of the game even in small way. They dictated the entire game in many cases, a game refereed by Wally Harris or Bryan Lewis would be very different to one refereed by Bob Myers or Dave Newell (which could at any time due to how many things they missed or called strangely could have the players simply snap).

The physical game is of course still not there and I don't know if it ever will be. To have the game run by penalties per game, but not include penalty minutes per game and fights per game makes it all lopsided. the same year can have 7.00 pen per game, but if they are all minors the total is 14 pim, while if 5 are minors and 2 are majors on average then one is at 20 pim per game. So there needs more detail, and more of an option for us to choose. Just upping penalty per game value does not mean more accurate PIM stats esp at certain historical periods....without brawls and what not in the game it really does take away the realism of the historical aspect. A game between quebec and montreal in the 80's should have a trigger moment that in the course of 6 or 7 games in the season will at least once touch off, that would be guaranteed.

[Irr11]

Originally Posted by Irr11

- NHLers should be eligible for Olympic rosters again, like in real life

In addition to this: the NHL should also pause during the Olympics now. But it's no criticism of FHM6, I know it was made before the new CBA.

[ExeR]

Originally Posted by Irr11

I miss interacting with players in FHM.

Disagree with this one, especially disagree about copying FM system. Empty circle jerk and done poorly, even if players enjoy it as a feature.
I've seen too many cases of "motivator" not working in different kinds of sports. Great players made lots of coaches look like geniuses. But right after they leave/retire whole thing plays out like Cinderella story.
Making a good chemistry or coach-player relationship imitation is not impossible. It's just that every dev try to simplify it or boil it down to "Click to Win" type module. That's just not possible for it to be simple under the hood, but it's possible for representation to be simple:
1) Hot/Cold, Morale, Motivation. Hear about it all the time, Jordan's documentary was the latest example. So it's a real thing that need to be accounted for, but you can't have wizard that fixes it because he has strong attribute. Much better system would be to give coach ability to "estimate morale" and then act on it based on another "motivation" attribute. Now you can connect that to player's attributes:
a) Rodman hated playing for hardass "do as I say" coach, who used him in wrong roles regarding Star hierarchy. Had no problem being 3rd option for "personal approach" coach. So between adaptability, ambition, coachability you can create combinations of player behavior and results of his "chemistry" with different types of coaches.
b) If players are mentally exhausted, saying "Come on, where is the effort?" like in FM should have negative consequences, if anything. If coach doesn't feel locker room or not the type to bother, he won't know when to shut up and let it go for the good of team.
2) Some coaches can be hardasses, that should "attract" certain type of players (usually called dogs). That will allow to maximize effort of usually less talented players and push them 24/7 until they break physically. But there are fit problems, especially when it comes to Star players. We see it right now with Brady. He hated offensive&roster limitations of old team, but now he has to deal with undisciplined new team. So hardasses won't have undisciplined team, but will make players unhappy for different reasons.
3) Playstyle. You can create natural correlation between "hardass" coach and preference for strong defense and vice versa. There are exceptions, but usually they go hand in hand. OOTP have preferences like that, so why not use them (they're usually dead weight affecting nothing). Mourinho in ManU is great example from soccer. Not all players just want to have max backchecking and spend their playing time not attacking.
Or take "system" coaches like Di Anotni (bball) or Guardiola (soccer). Their style requires very particular type of players, so that affects roster. So if defenders have to play with "passing" goalie that regularly blunders, they can get upset that "their" part of game or responsibility is sacrificed. So if there are no results produced by system or they have low professionalism, determination, temperament they can get upset with lots of goals allowed. And no coach reputation, attribute or anything he says will make it better.
All these can combine into nice chemistry system with enough variety to make long saves & replays worth it. If you have to pick your style and think how it will affect attracting star players. Or judge if player will get upset playing in your system before trading for him. In some cases it would be better to take less talented player, but who you know will have great attitude. This will add depth to trading/transfer system and online leagues. Attacking team takes unhappy player from defensive team, win-win trade etc.
So imo playstyle, training/preparation methods, evaluating chemistry can be foundation for great depth & variety increase. They're done in OOTP as tendencies/staff attributes, so why not use them to full extent.

As for changes I would like to see implemented:
1) Random ability/talent change (static potential & gradual development are boring & "unrealistic")
2) Hot/cold system. Goalie has it, and many interesting uses for that info (especially changing tactics around it).