New for FHM10

[JeffR]

Here's the long version of the update list. This is probably less complete than last year, as I'm a bit busier right now; I think I've probably left out a number of things, particularly on the data side. If I find anything I've missed, I'll add it later.

Major New Features

-during setup, custom leagues can now import entire leagues from either the historical or modern databases or both; all the historical leagues (including WHA/PCHA/NHA) in each year from 1909 on are available, and most of the 2023-24 leagues, including ones that are nonplayable in standard mode; the research on the nonplayable leagues will be less thorough than what you'll see in playable leagues, but the basic elements (and players, in most cases) will be there
-real current/historical teams can be imported into a custom game during league setup (replacing teams in an already-created league)
-promotion/Relegation leagues can now be created in custom games; last-placed team in the upper league will be replaced by the first-placed team in the lower league. Right now promotion/relegation is limited to a 2-way connection, i.e. you can't add a third level that promotes to the first relegation league, or add multiple relegation leagues to a single top-level league.
-added Media Relations: this is a new aspect of the off-ice systems (fan happiness, owner expectations, and team harmony having come previously.) The media covering each team will choose a number of players to focus on; the bigger the team's media coverage, the more players that will get attention. The coverage may be negative or positive (influence by the general tone of the team's real coverage, e.g. Canadiens media will be tough.) Media coverage will affect player happiness, their willingness to re-sign (bad coverage = less likely), and player popularity. Each team's GM's relationship with the media is also tracked; a bad relationship hurts job security, increasing the chance of getting fired. The media system is integrated with the harmony system; off-ice incidents generate media coverage, usually negative, and the GM gets the opportunity to defend/criticize his player in response to that coverage. Winning and losing games will also affect the media coverage, and GM's have a similar ability to respond to that. Responding aggressively to the media may limit the effect of bad coverage on your players, but can hurt your relationship with the media.
-the National Hockey Association is now playable in historical, and the game can be started as early as 1909; in 1917, the NHA ends and the NHL appears. The Canadiens, Wanderers, and Senators change leagues (the franchise identities for them are used for both leagues, so player stats, cup history, etc. for the NHA will remain in their history), and the other teams fold and release their players. Playoff systems and the Stanley Cup finals vary a lot in this period; in some years there will be no playoffs and the regular-season champion is the winner. Rosters and lineups will be a little larger than they were historically, but there are a large number of free agents included to fill them out
-there are new "Needs" and "Shopping" tabs on the trading interface; "Needs" lets you specify exactly what your team is looking for at the moment ("Active Needs"), in terms of age, sill level, position etc. and, on the right side of the screen, lets you look at potential trade targets in several different ways via the dropdown menu - all players that fit your needs, only trading block players that fit, potential interest in your trading block players, etc.; Shopping players has been reworked and no longer uses the mail screen. You can also specify what you want in return for the player (including the option to match your active needs), and you can now shop draft picks.
-Canadian College Hockey is now playable. The mechanics borrow heavily from the American college system, with some differences: redshirt rules are much more limited, there are different rules for eligibility in the drafts (generally older ages, Canadian nationality requirement, etc.), as well as the general characteristics of Canadian college hockey (low attendance, low prestige, low budgets.)
-the US college Transfer Portal has been added, making it more difficult for college teams to stockpile good prospects without giving them playing time or scholarships. On June 30, every US college player (aside from graduating seniors) has the opportunity to leave his team for the Transfer Portal; the chance is higher if the player is unhappy, isn't playing regularly, has problems with teammates, etc. On August 1, there's a new 5-round draft-like event that works similarly to national signing day, except it's limited to the Transfer Portal players and their signing competition preferences will lean towards teams that have roster and scholarship space. Unselected players go back to their old team.
-added preseason prospects tournament - enabled by default for NHL and KHL in standard games, historical NHL after 2004-05, and top-level leagues in custom games, on/off option for other leagues; leagues will split into multiple groups for the tournament, which are held before the preseason; participating players will get a bonus to their development for that month and teams will get extra scouting on all players in their tournament
-added youth tournaments: these are generic versions of prominent real-life youth hockey tournaments for under-18 club teams (Calgary midget, Quebec City pee-wee, etc.); they'll give junior/college teams something to scout, give senior teams more advance notice of younger players, and give the players a bit more of a backstory by the time they reach playable leagues. Since we don't have individual youth teams, they essentially work as pseudo-international tournaments with teams that are all-star teams representative of larger areas than a single city or club, usually state/province/region
-added the ability to install the game's data (including saves) to a custom path in Windows, so it no longer needs to be in the /documents folder
-playoff games are no longer all played on the same day, i.e. if a league has multiple playoff series, then they'll be split so half of the games happen on one day, then the other half the next
-the system we used to allow re-drafting for Vegas and Seattle in the modern game during their expansion years has been added to all of the historical expansion drafts, so it's no longer necessary to play out the previous season if you want to start with an expansion team's first draft. (Note that the entry drafts in the draft year will still already have occurred when the game begins, those can't be re-done.) The lists of exposed players for any expansion drafts run in this manner are historically accurate. In addition to their newly-drafted players, teams will still also begin with some non-drafted players that the real team had been signed as free agents or traded for outside the draft
-you can now assign scouts to watch individual tournaments. Each scout can watch one tournament a month in addition to his regular duties; at the conclusion of the tournament, you'll get an email with his report on what he saw. "Tournaments" is used very broadly here, it includes International Tournaments, League Playoffs (only the part of the playoffs that would appear on the league's Playoff tab - i.e. if a league has pre-playoffs, relegation, promotion, etc., those aren't counted as part of the "playoffs"), Non-Playoff Cups (e.g. UK Challenge Cup), Multi-league Tournaments (e.g. Champions Hockey League, Memorial Cup), and the new Youth Tournaments
-we've added a large number of new award types (primarily for awards of types other than those used by the NHL); some of these have been added to the real leagues that use them, but all can be activated via League Edit. Awards in historical will also only be active during the years they were actually awarded (i.e. no "Mark Messier Leadership Award" in 1920).

Other New Things:

Historical Changes
-new historical players now appear at 16 instead of 17
-adjusted starting level of new players downward slightly to offset earlier starting age
-fill-in mechanic added for expansion and waiver drafts - when it is active, if a team loses a player, it can then protect an additional player; if your team gets a fill-in opportunity, you'll be alerted via popup; with this mechanic active, expansion teams should be significantly weaker (as they were historically in the 1967-1979 expansions)
-with the new 1909 start, the PCHA will appear in its real debut season of 1911-12
-in 1919, the former NHA Quebec team reactivates in the NHL, and will get their players back: anyone in the NHL who played for NHA Quebec (and no other team) in 1916-17 is returned to the team (note: turning historical editing on deactivates this feature)
-rebuilding the schedule in historical will no longer move the awards ceremony date before the playoffs
-in historical, AI teams will no longer sign players who begin the game with long-term injuries (i.e., injuries from the prestart file)
-Coyotes now switch arenas on the correct dates

Custom League/Editing Changes
-fixed crash on the "Edit League Playoffs and Rules" screen in the custom setup wizard when clicking button at the top-left with the league abbreviation on it
-free agent head coaches and GM's at the start of a custom game will no longer begin with 0 reputation, leading to extremely low salary requests
-on the custom wizard "Add a League" popup, the Games per Team field no longer forces single-digit numbers to become even until the field is no longer active (they were changing instantly, making it impossible to e.g. enter "30" because the 3 would become a 4)
-if a custom league starts with a pre-set playoff type (rather than Custom) and then changes to Custom on July 1, the "Start Round" dropdown should now populate correctly instead of being completely blank
-removed several entries from the custom league Create a New League screen that aren't real database regions (they're only used for scouting screen zones) and whose selection would result in all of the league's teams being created in Canada
-if an unconnected junior league is created during custom game setup it now uses the same $0 salary structure as the connected ones
-if user adds their own custom images, the AHL playoffs now longer show the IIHF World Championships trophy image rather than the AHL trophy image
-significantly reduced the number of high-potential players when creating starting players for a new custom junior league (junior only, and only for the at-start players, annual player generation is unchanged)
-the coach of the year award is no longer missing from the League-Edit awards section
-in custom leagues, the postseason all-star teams (both 1st and 2nd) now get two defencemen instead of only one
-the postseason all-rookie teams in custom games now select two defencemen instead of one
-in a custom league with free agency and restricted free agents turned on in the settings, teams will now properly retain the rights to players after their contract ends

2D Mode Changes
-rover position added to 2D mode; on by default in historical mode when it was actually active (first two NHA years, pre-1923 PCHA, 1920 Olympics) with an option to turn it on in other leagues (in all types of games); having it on will force league's games to be played in 2D (as it wasn't possible to implement in classic mode); it makes use of the "extra skater" position used when a goalie is pulled, so goalie-pulling will be turned off if the rover rule is on (which is accurate historically, as pulling the goalie didn't come into use until years after the rover disappeared); AI will choose who players rover automatically, but tends to favour players with height position ratings at C/LD/RD (which the real historical rovers will tend to have in the historical database)
-added some more set-play mechanics, this time for breakouts and neutral zone play and associated defensive forechecking
-fixed bug causing shot display to reset to 0-0 if you simmed a game to the end
-made some more adjustments to avoid situations where defending players go past the puck and wait for icing
-fixed target selection on drop passes not working properly
-adjusted 2D shooting function to work better in high-scoring leagues
-adjusted "Press" penalty killing option so only one forward, rather than both, chase the puck carrier
-adjusted breakout behaviour to reduce the chance of a puck carrier "stalling" during the breakout as he waits for his teammates to catch up to him
-made adjustments to 2D mode to get some stats back in line with where they should be, particularly goals and shots

AI Changes
-made a number of changes to roster AI in leagues with low lineup sizes (e.g. early NHL) that dramatically increases stability when a team has very few subsitutes available during a game
-adjusted AI draft logic in expansion drafts to put a higher weighting on player potential
-adjusted AI draft logic in initial ("fantasy") drafts to put a higher weighting on player potential
-adjusted AI spending on player development and marketing for European teams to get a broader variety of choices
-fixed issue causing AI not to assign scouts when controlling college/junior teams
-improved logic for NHL-Europe Junior Loans so loaned players who recently changed European teams will go back to their new team instead of trhe last one they played a game for
-for teams below the NHL level, decreased profit-taking amount owner can take from team's funds on July 1
-made some role requirement changes to backchecking forward, two-way forward, and screener roles
-introduced development point banking, an internal player development measure to control the oversupply of NHL good-quality players after a few years in the game: it's now much more difficult for high-potential players to reach NHL-level abillity if they're not playing in a top-level league; the worse the league the stronger the effect

UI Changes
-there's a new "Stats" tab on the roster screen; this just adds a more convenient way to look at your team's player stats, instead of having to go through a couple of dropdowns to get at them.
-various new graphical elements in UI (backgrounds, menu layouts, etc.)
-new, hopefully more readable font (Georama, replacing Lato)
-contract screen now displays Contract Quality, a rough assessment of whether the AI regards the player as being under- or over-paid; also, during contract negotiations, when a player makes a contract request, the "Estimated Contract Quality" will be shown
-added a news item whenever a non-final playoff series ends that briefly describes the series outcome
-increased scouting reach of teams in junior and college leagues, they should be able to scout a lot more players now instead of having big gaps that led to a lot of unscouted players in their drafts
-changed scouting mechanics to fix the issue of college/junior teams wasting time scouting players whose junior preference doesn't match the league's requirement (except for USports, which will still scout Junior-preference players)
-on the trade offer screen, changed the text "since we just acquired him fairly recently" to "since he was just acquired or re-signed with us recently."
-darkened the background on the right-click menu for players
-on the Scouting Coverage maps, the "20" on the key in the lower-left is no longer cut off
-the transaction log no longer loses the details of a contract extension (amount/length) after the season changes to a new year
-on the National Signing Day draft screen, added a tooltip for the INT column
-awards ceremony screen will no longer behave oddly or break completely if there are no eligible players for an award (most commonly happens with rookie of the year)
-on the Trade Offer screen, if the user clicks on the name of a player listed in the offer box for either team, then clicks back after viewing the player screen, the Offer screen no longer becomes completely empty of all information other than buttons and column headers
-if a player has a ± number worse than -9, the boxscore no longer displays "-..." instead
-when the 10% offseason cap cushion is active for salary cap leagues, the "Salary Cap Space" field on the Free Agent Centre screen will now show the amount available including the extra 10% (instead of the unadjusted amount that it had previously been showing)
-"Goalie Ratings" no longer appears twice in the Ratings section on the roster and search screen's main dropdown
-on the "Take over Team" screen, when sorting by league the top-level league (NHL in standard games) will be listed first
-reflexes is no longer missing as an option in the player search filter's Ratings screen
-when protecting players for an expansion draft that has the "Must Protect NMC's" rule, the NMC players can no longer be removed from the list via right-click
-when players who are in the Hall of Fame in real life are inducted into the Hall of Fame in a historical game, their bio now displays their game year of induction rather than the real one
-if the user chooses to change ticket prices during the annual finances on July 1, the setting they choose will no longer become the default the following season
-when setting up an expansion draft, switching between the age restriction and years of experience options now reverts the opposite option to 0
-in the team stats tab of the postgame screen, the PPC/PPG are no longer reversed in the totals column for both teams
-user's playoff games no longer occasionally fail to display on the calendar at the top-right of the scree
-in the pregame summary's "star player" section of the pregame notes, if a player's ± rating is positive, it's no longer shown without the +
-on July 1, when the continue button shows "Annual Finances", clicking it will now take you to Annual Finances rather than Monthly
-on the national team schedule screens (calendar view), the Swiss Hockey Games are no longer listed as "Channel One Cup" instead of their actual name
-fixed occasional blank messages appearing in the inbox
-lowered annual finances marketing costs slightly
-fixed "Possesion"/"Possession" misspelling in various places
-if a league has no divisions, references to division and divisional position no longer appear blank in news items that use them - it will show the league name and league position in that case.
-reference to games played in points award announcement will no longer be blank
-changed default series length to "Best of 7" for custom playoff setup
-created "default" versions of a number of historical team logos so teams imported to a different year that's beyond their historical range still get a logo
-in the boxscores, the column width in the Player Summary section is now fixed and can't be adjusted
-on the team-unsigned screen, the filter Reset button is no longer overlapped by the position dropdown
-the numbers at the bottom-right of the award icons on the player screens are no longer cut off at the bottom

Miscellaneous Changes
-added some tracking of the multiplayer import process to debug.txt so commissioners can find the source of an import problem more easily; when the game attempts to import a file (both from server or folder) it will show e.g. "Importing teamfile_4.fhm (Chicago Blackhawks) from Server/Folder". If the import succeeds, it adds another message: "teamfile_4.fhm (Chicago Blackhawks) imported successfully from Server/Folder". If there is an error, it may also show the specific cause: "...could not be opened", "...wrong game date", "...different version of the game" and "Could not import team file from FTP server"
-the commissioner account can now make draft picks for the currently-drafting team just by right-clicking, i.e. it's no longer necessary to swap to/from teams in a multiplayer league's draft
-if a player's injury is currently deferred and the player is then placed on the injured list, the injury will now begin to heal instead of waiting until the postseason (so the user now has the chance to change his mind on the deferral)
-the injury deferral system should now work properly in the playoffs
-added "Hand" to player_master.csv export file (Output is: "Right", "Left" or "Not Set" - last one shouldn't normally appear, though)
-if USports is selected as a playable league, WHL/OHL/QMJHL must also be selected
-game/shift fatigue has been adjusted upward for the pre-1960 eras to model player usage in those periods more realistically; the effect is strongest pre-1923 but continues (at decreasing strength) up to 1959
-Champions League updated to 2023-24 format/scheduling
-DEL Relegation changed: playoff eliminated, last-place team is relegated automatically and replaced by DEL-2 winner
-Mestis Relegation is now a 5-team round-robin (so 8 games total) with the bottom 4 Mestis teams and Suomi-Sarja champions (i.e., Suomi-Sarja #2 team no longer plays.)
-Suomi-Sarja Playoff final is now best-of-5
-added EIHL playoffs bronze medal game
-added AIHL play-in round
-National League (Swiss) pre-playoff play-in round has been changed slightly, 7v8 in one series; winner gets #7 seed; then the loser of that series plays the winner of a 9v10 series for the #8 seed. All 3 series are 2-game total goals
-World U17 Hockey Challenge start date moved a week later
-the team budget amount now updates properly to reflect the user's choice in the "Wage Budget" option of the Annual Budget
-when a team wins a series/group in a relegation round, their Fan Happiness no longer gets a penalty as if they lost the round
-fixed potential crash in April of 1918
-the Intra-League draft and Waiver Draft now cannot both be activated in the same season (doesn't make sense to have both, as they serve the same function, and having both breaks the Intra-League draft)
-the NTC/NMC waiver lists will now be shorter than 10 in leagues with <20 teams
-if the user is controlliong a WHL/OHL/QMJHL team, the league news no longer makes 3 separate host announcements on September 21 for the Memorial Cup ho
-changed Goalie Stat-Adjusted Talent to weight games played more significantly
-in an opening night start, the user is no longer offered the opportunity to coach national teams in "this year's Winter Olympics" despite the Olympics not occurring until 2026
-added new fan happiness bonuses when now head coach and/or GM is hired
-added additional starting money for teams on a sliding scale based on how old the team is, up to 2* the previous level for teams that are 10+ years old
-fixed issue causing some players seem to remain in generic leagues past their age limit
-players will no longer switch their primary nationality to countries that do not have national teams
-the CHL prospects game will no longer drift towards an earlier date, eventually conflicting with the WJC
-the AI should no longer release players entering their overage season from human-run WHL/QMJHL/OHL teams
-Polish league will now treat Ukrainian players as local
-Swedish J20 Nationell league will now treat Norwegian and Danish players as local
-foreign roster limits for non-Russian KHL teams will now work properly
-the "Foreigners Dressed (team is not from main nation)" data setting now applies to any country that is not the same as the main one in the league settings (it was previously checking the region, so it wasn't getting applied to Kazakh/Belarusian KHL teams)
-fixed region settings for KHL/VHL teams that was causing players from all ex-Soviet countries to be treated as local, instead of just the KHL countries
-updated NHL jerseys (in both standard and historical games)
-improved internal handling of postseason all-star and all-rookie team data

[boscoJJ]

Nice

[snarls200]

with starting historical mode so early how will it handle the cup challenge era years?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by snarls200

with starting historical mode so early how will it handle the cup challenge era years?

Good timing, I just finished writing that up for the NHA league notes a few minutes ago:

1909-10 to 12-13: No NHA playoffs
1913-14 to 14-15: Top two NHA teams meet in a 2-game total-goals series, winner plays PCHA champion in best-of-5 series for Stanley Cup
1915-16: No NHA playoffs, regular-season champion plays PCHA champion in best-of-5 series for Stanley Cup
1916-17: Top two NHA teams meet in a 2-game total-goals series, then the winner plays PCHA champion in best-of-5 series for Stanley Cup.

There were other challenge series still going on the first few years (1910-1913), with the NHA champions playing against teams from other Canadian professional leagues, but they weren't remotely competitive. The NHA teams never lost a game, and most of the games weren't even close. So those are left out; it's not worth the time and coding effort it would take to replicate the whole Canadian professional league structure of 1913 just to watch Quebec beat the Sydney Millionaires of the Maritime Professional Hockey League 13-4.

[AbeFroman]

Jeff, really looking forward to Tuesday. Has the NHL trade AI been adjusted? In previous versions, after year 1, when the cap was manually adjusted up, there would usually be not a lot of deals and especially larger deals, at the trade deadline.

[snarls200]

makes sense on not using the challenge era rukes

[Peter-]

Have you this year focused more on getting the European leagues (such as Swedish Hockey League, Hockeyallsvenskan and maybe Hockeyettan) to have realistic and updated lineups, player attributes, team finances, correct league rules, player transfers and player purchases to work correctly and so on? I only like to play and manage an SHL-club so it would be so nice if you guys have focused on this in FHM 10?

[Särås]

Will AI use the best goalie or still use the backup for like 50+ games a year?

[northjersey]

the changes don't seem to be earth shattering, and seem more tailored for custom leagues, but Jeff's team has been great at updating the game and answering our questions quickly, that they can still take my $$$ once the game is released

will previous owners be able to purchase earlier than the public? is there a confirmed discount for them or for pre-orders, especially if we don't use Steam?
or are we just waiting to the regular release tomorrow?

[boscoJJ]

Originally Posted by peter-

have you this year focused more on getting the european leagues (such as swedish hockey league, hockeyallsvenskan and maybe hockeyettan) to have realistic and updated lineups, player attributes, team finances, correct league rules, player transfers and player purchases to work correctly and so on? I only like to play and manage an shl-club so it would be so nice if you guys have focused on this in fhm 10?

stop repeating the same question would you

[drummerJ99]

Originally Posted by northjersey

will previous owners be able to purchase earlier than the public?

Assuming no, as they never have before have they? And it releases tommorow.

Originally Posted by northjersey

is there a confirmed discount for them or for pre-orders, especially if we don't use Steam?
or are we just waiting to the regular release tomorrow?

Pretty sure it's 10% off at release whether you buy directly from OOTP or Steam.

[Merla]

Originally Posted by Peter-

Have you this year focused more on getting the European leagues (such as Swedish Hockey League, Hockeyallsvenskan and maybe Hockeyettan) to have realistic and updated lineups, player attributes, team finances, correct league rules, player transfers and player purchases to work correctly and so on? I only like to play and manage an SHL-club so it would be so nice if you guys have focused on this in FHM 10?

I have to agree. The European leagues aren't quite realistic yet, and it appears that team reputations don't factor in significantly, leading to odd signings. A top team like Färjestad ought to attract more talented players compared to IK Oskarshamn, despite both being in the same league. It's similar to football, where a top-tier team like Manchester City can sign better players than Fulham.

Also, team loyalty should play a more significant role. Players returning from North America ought to show a stronger preference for rejoining their former European teams. For instance, a player who once played for Färjestad, moved to the NHL and didn’t succeed, and then came back to the SHL would, in all likelihood, re-sign with Färjestad. In the game, this rarely occurs; instead, they frequently sign with different teams in an unrealistic way.

[renojedi]

Any changes to the interplay between NHL, AHL, and ECHL? If we play as an NHL team, can we assign a player to the ECHL and tell them how to play them? Can AHL teams assign their players there so the NHL team's prospects get more time? Can we force those teams to use a player in specific situations, roles, or lines? Hoping this falls under things you didn't have time to mention. With this playing a role in prospect development, having as much control as possible post college/junior is going to be important, especially if I have a stacked NHL roster.

[renojedi]

Did waiver claims get fixed so it works like the actual NHL (i.e. can put them back on waivers and if no one claims them they can be traded or loaned)? I know it became optional to use the NMC workaround but all that did was allows us to either go back to the old way (not requiring waivers again) or we have that artificial restriction.

[Anthony5967]

Steam says 14 hours until release. 7:30 PM EST? Or is that inaccurate?

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by Anthony5967

Steam says 14 hours until release. 7:30 PM EST? Or is that inaccurate?

Jeff said about 5am Pacific Standard Time, so that seems about right. Maybe 8am EST instead or possibly 4:30 PST.

[Cas]

"introduced development point banking, an internal player development measure to control the oversupply of NHL good-quality players after a few years in the game: it's now much more difficult for high-potential players to reach NHL-level abillity if they're not playing in a top-level league; the worse the league the stronger the effect"

Not a heavily publicized change, but honestly the one I'm most interested in.

This isn't a complaint, it just reflects the part of the game I am most interested in. I'll be buying in the morning.

[boscoJJ]

6 hours to go and still no updates in official website

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Anthony5967

Steam says 14 hours until release. 7:30 PM EST? Or is that inaccurate?

5 AM Pacific, 8 AM Eastern, 1 PM GMT, 2 PM CET. Steam's showing the correct time to me.

[northjersey]

Originally Posted by JeffR

5 AM Pacific, 8 AM Eastern, 1 PM GMT, 2 PM CET. Steam's showing the correct time to me.

will the site link show up at 8a ET today? (I don't use Steam)