FHM11 Update 11.3.39 Now Available

[JeffR]

Another content update for FHM11, version 11.3.39, has just been released.

To apply the update:

-If you are playing the FastSpring version, just download the setup file and install it over your current installation. There is no need to uninstall or unlicense your current copy! However, you should quit the game before installing it, of course.
-If you are playing the Steam version, the game will auto-update if you have that option active. If you don't see the update in your Steam update queue, you may need to exit and restart your Steam client.

Download link for PC (FastSpring):
Main server: PC Installer Fastspring

Download link for Mac (FastSpring):
Main Server: Mac Installer Fastspring

The second content update for FHM11 is here! In addition to fully updated rosters in all leagues (as of February 4), we've also added the old Western Hockey League (1948-74) as the third playable minor league in historical mode, made a number of changes to improve 2D mode's realism, as well as the usual bug fixes and other adjustments. Historical and league-specific penalties for 2D mode, which we'd hoped to include in this update, have run into a few complications so we've pushed those back to the next (post-trading deadline) update. That one is likely to be a fair bit larger than this one, as the hotfix two weeks ago included a number of the fixes that would've gone into this update. It will also include the last of the new playable historical minor leagues, which will cover the later years (1984-2001) of the International Hockey League. That update will be released sometime in mid-March, after the NHL trading deadline.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game. Some fixes, however, are data-dependent and may require starting a new game before you see them.

Additions, changes, and fixes:

-current database updated, rosters current as of February 4 (the Pettersson extension with Vancouver is the earliest NHL thing that's not in)
-Western Hockey League (1948-74 version, not the junior league) is now playable in historical mode; everyone who played a WHL game in this period has been added to the database; note that some teams in this league will continue into the CHL when the WHL folds in 1974
-large number adjustments to 2D mechanics; in particular, scoring should now be lowered to a realistic level, the shot totals for defencemen substantially reduced, shots blocked increased, and forwards should be shooting from long range more often
-the schedule screen will now show the correct number of points for teams in leagues that allow ties (had not been counting the tie points)
-the scorers list on the schedule screen will no longer be cut off in high-scoring games
-newly-acquired players in multiplayer games will now get a number other than 0 assigned
-KHL teams can now have their VHL farm team relationships edited (in commissioner mode on July 1)
-when using the "end of season" setup in historical, players with both minor league and NHL history in that season will no longer be assigned to the minor league team
-the AI should now select captains for expansion teams properly
-fixed loophole allowing the AI to ignore contract limits in some situations
-farm teams will no longer be added automatically (when an NHL team is created) to playable minor leagues in historical mode (had been breaking the schedules in the minor leagues)
-when an expansion team is added to a league, its founded date will now be set to the current year
-corrected GA tooltip on player stats screen (it's giveaways but was showing up as "goals against")
-shooter/blocker names are no longer reversed on the 2D game's shots display
-made it more difficult for players to develop their defensive skills to elite levels when not playing in a top-level league
-NHL player ratings reviewed and adjusted for 24-25 performance
-2025 IIHF tournaments now have their correct participants
-fixed missing history for Latvian league
-updated some missing logos from new national teams that started playing this year
-updated presets file for the "current" start to correct some injury lengths, add a few missed injuries, and update NHL captains
-fixed issue preventing some 2023 and 2024 drafted players from appearing in historical games
-adjusted default percentage of talent from stats in new historical games down to 20% (modern/custom games unaffected, still at 40%.) The higher percentage was putting the AI at too much of a disadvantage relative to human players, who have (or can easily look up) better information on the player's actual ability/potential. In standard and custom games, the user doesn't know any more about the future of the players, so they're equally misled by the influence of the stats and the higher percentage doesn't create an imbalance.
-updated recent team history for Champions Hockey League and Memorial Cup
-recent NCAA commitments updated
-new Chinese league updated with the 24-25 teams and rosters (non-playable)
-added new player cards for 1960-1969, 1970-1979, and 2000-2009 periods
-the new player card info.txt options for alternate formatting of team and player names that were added in FHM8 should now be working properly again
-conflicts with a parent team's players will now be cleared properly when a player is traded by that team while on their farm team's roster
-fixed players getting the same nationality listed twice in historical mode

[Colorado]

New update sounds good and looking forward to using it.

Jeff can I ask, how far away do you feel the 2D engine is away from looking more like this 2D like the NHL Edge plays on NHL official site?

Graphically, is this something you guys would like to work towards? For me, this is how the 2D engine should aspire to look aesthetically in the game.

[Swedishgamefreak]

I tried in exhibition mode and there are stuff that looks better. Players move better (was something changed to the speed of the players?) and there were more variations in goals. One thing that I wish was fixed was being able to click on options when I pause the game. It's only available sometimes. I will try more later tonight.

Edit: I still feel like it is very choppy. The players doesn't really move naturally enough for me. Players going in a straight line in slow motion, players waiting for the puck in corners, rebounds that makes every player transport to the puck, players just standing in positions and not move to spaces looking for passes.

I still feel that after these years (since FHM 7) it has not improved enough. EHM got the 2D engine in 2005 that is a lot better than we have in FHM. I really hope we will get there one day and that the developers use the NHL Edge 2D presentation as inspiration. I will still buy this game every year but I still think that we need to see more improvements than we had recent years.

[Félicette]

Looks great, can't wait to test this update !

[artlan]

Finally, was waiting for this update to start a career. Thanks Jeff and team!

[boscoJJ]

Does the Custom International games bug regarding the Imported NHL Players not called up fixed

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by boscoJJ

Does the Custom International games bug regarding the Imported NHL Players not called up fixed

Was fixed a couple of updates ago.

[Iceman90]

Based on the change notes, it appears that NHL waiver rules still haven't been corrected? Right now it seems a player is exempt from waivers once they've cleared for the next 30 calendar days.

The actual rules say that a player who has already cleared waivers is exempt for 30 days or 10 games from the date of their call-up. And it doesn't have to be consecutive. A player could be called up for 3 8-day stints. Or for 9 games over 4 months.

Is there a plan to finally get this corrected?
PuckPedia has a good primer on the waiver rules.

[boscoJJ]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Was fixed a couple of updates ago.

It works for 1970s but not for 1950s

[Swedishgamefreak]

I'm doing some tests on the 2D engine. I know that there were some changes to reducing shots from defensemen. In both 24-25 and 25-26 there were 25+ defensemen that had over 200 shots but if you look at irl stats from last season, there were only 8 defensemen that had over 200 shots. However, if you lower that maybe they don't get enough points. Maybe there needs to be more efficiency on those shots if you lower it even more. I feel like assists are lower than it should be since last year we had Kucherov and McDavid having 100 assists. In my tests, no one went over 80 assists in both seasons.

Should penalties be increased maybe? The PP opportunities over a season is not really close yet. Last season there were 8 teams that had over 10 minutes PIM/G while in the game, no team had over 10 minutes.

Just some of the things I noticed in my tests.

I also feel that some tweaking on AI team management is necessary soon. This has been a problem this year since a lot of key players gets traded all the time even though the trades does not make any sense.

[dawg1isclear]

"-large number adjustments to 2D mechanics; in particular, scoring should now be lowered to a realistic level, the shot totals for defencemen substantially reduced, shots blocked increased, and forwards should be shooting from long range more often"

YES!!! Might have to restart my season, after testing this out!!! Thanks for the update!!!

[Savoie45]

Originally Posted by Swedishgamefreak

I'm doing some tests on the 2D engine. I know that there were some changes to reducing shots from defensemen. In both 24-25 and 25-26 there were 25+ defensemen that had over 200 shots but if you look at irl stats from last season, there were only 8 defensemen that had over 200 shots. However, if you lower that maybe they don't get enough points. Maybe there needs to be more efficiency on those shots if you lower it even more. I feel like assists are lower than it should be since last year we had Kucherov and McDavid having 100 assists. In my tests, no one went over 80 assists in both seasons.

Should penalties be increased maybe? The PP opportunities over a season is not really close yet. Last season there were 8 teams that had over 10 minutes PIM/G while in the game, no team had over 10 minutes.

Just some of the things I noticed in my tests.

I also feel that some tweaking on AI team management is necessary soon. This has been a problem this year since a lot of key players gets traded all the time even though the trades does not make any sense.

So are you playing without any tweaks to the tactics? Unfortunately, with many sports games it's going to very difficult to get "realistic" stats other than final scores due to game play sliders and such having an effect on the results. In this case it would be the tactics being used.They might be able to tweak it under the hood without sliders being part of the equation, but users would likely still see varying results.

[Swedishgamefreak]

Originally Posted by Savoie45

So are you playing without any tweaks to the tactics? Unfortunately, with many sports games it's going to very difficult to get "realistic" stats other than final scores due to game play sliders and such having an effect on the results. In this case it would be the tactics being used.They might be able to tweak it under the hood without sliders being part of the equation, but users would likely still see varying results.

I was unemployed in those tests so I did not control any team. AI controlled every team. Classic engine gets stats that are more close to what we see in irl NHL.
I don't fully agree that sports games overall have difficulties getting realistic stats. There are other games that are closer. Do they have bigger dev teams (FM and EA NHL)? Sure, that could be the problem. But there are games that are closer to realism than FHM. I said it before and I say it again, AI GMs are very trigger happy when it comes to trades and I think it was better last year in FHM 10.

[djmacb]

Wow - incredibly disappointed. I just played a 2D game where the puck was held behind the goal for the last 12 minutes of the game. It's so frustrating because there is nothing that can be done to stop this ridiculousness. This is worse than anything I experienced before the "upgrade." Sorry for the negative post, but give me a break.

[dawg1isclear]

Hey, I had the same thing happen to me, but was around center ice...had to simulate rest of game...agree, annoying...hopefully they will address it soon!

[artlan]

Originally Posted by djmacb

Wow - incredibly disappointed. I just played a 2D game where the puck was held behind the goal for the last 12 minutes of the game. It's so frustrating because there is nothing that can be done to stop this ridiculousness. This is worse than anything I experienced before the "upgrade." Sorry for the negative post, but give me a break.

Perhaps it's just me but I find that there's typically a "hotfix" after an update to address some of these new bugs that popped up. Jeff and team are really good at taking care of these, so I am sure it will be fixed.

[dawg1isclear]

well look what the mailman brought by, however, do not see a fix to the frozen puck issue, d/l now so maybe it is fixed, fingers crossed!