Franchise Hockey Manager v1.0.3 Discussion Thread

[dave1927p]

Here is the link for the official forum post: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/f ... lable.html

Saves are compatible

PC: http://files.ootpdevelopments.com/fhm/v ... 4setup.exe
Mac: http://files.ootpdevelopments.com/fhm/v ... taller.dmg

PC Installation instructions: After you download the file just install it over your existing game (you don't need to uninstall the old version first.) Make sure to select the correct path to your game if needed.
Mac Installation instructions: After you download the .dmg file, open it, move the fhm.app file to your applications folder and copy over the old version.

After installation, the game should display "Version 1.0 Build 3" at the bottom of the statup screen; if it shows a different build number, you'll need to re-download and reinstall (and before doing so, make sure the update file you downloaded has been deleted and your browser cache cleared.)

Changes/Fixes/Additions:

Comments:

As I indicated on the forum, the primary purpose of this patch is to resolve major issues that could potentially make 1.0 games unplayable, as well as add fixes that could be made and tested properly in a short amount of time. Things that require more coding and testing, such as complex AI behaviour regarding free agents (e.g., North American players signing in Europe too easily), AI team use of tough players, and Mac interface issues, will take more time and be addressed in the next patch (Multiplayer is still coming in the first major content patch, but these smaller patches with necessary immediate fixes will happen first.)

Thanks to everyone for their patience, that launch was a lot rougher than we hoped for but we're on the road to recovery now. There will be many more improvements to come.

Changes:

Game should no longer crashes when clicking on names of players currently playing in non-playable leagues (e.g., in draft previews or during draft.)
Fixed crashing when adding players to a trade, or moving scroll bar while looking at trade offers.
Should now be possible to move the starting goalie to G2 position when switching goalies during a game.
Rights issue when re-signing your own players resolved, should be possible to do this properly now.
Swedish and Finnish relegation should work correctly now.
Goalie shutouts and W-L-T now recorded properly.
Computer-run teams should no longer make trade requests to the player that offer nothing in return.
Custom mode inaugural drafts now scheduled for August to prevent conflicts with league formats that have an early start date.
Custom mode games no longer crash on June 30-July 1 of first season (was due to improper setup of draft rules in nonplayable leagues.)
Inaugural draft in custom mode should no longer force user to choose goalies first (this may occur in regular draft mode, though - discovered too late in testing to fix on this patch.)
Ability rating will now be recalculated after editing a player.
Now possible to start games as St. Louis (had been crashing because Missouri hadn't been assigned to a scouting region.)
Entry drafts should now occur properly in in historical mode.
Expansion drafts should now occur properly in in historical mode.
Historical mode will not crash on transition from June 30, 1979 to July 1, 1979.
Newly generated players outside Canada and US no longer always getting their national capital as a birthplace.
Players serving bench minors no longer get 2 minutes added to their PIM.
Mental ratings for post-prime players in historical mode stop collapsing to very low (1-2) values.
Staff portraits enabled.
Initial import of players in historical mode with generate at 17 turned off should now include only correct players for that option.
"Generic Leagues" description is now "Other Leagues."
Text/grammar errors in some news items corrected, new items added.
Neverending penalties in match engine fixed (caused by bug allowing already-penalized players to receive a second penalty.)
Should no longer be possible to sign "late-birthdate" (Sept. 16-Dec. 31) 18-year-olds before they're drafted
Team entry draft previews now "written by" amateur scout instead of assistant coach.
Should be fewer "Cy Young" players (high number of goals, low assists), may require a little more tuning.
"Return to Start Screen" feature removed from Mac version (should have been taken out at release, it causes crashes when trying to start new games after using it and needs more work before it's stable.)
Incorrect starting cap hits for some NHL players corrected.
Recent NHL roster moves added.
Starting ability of 17-year-olds in historical mode modified downward slightly.
Award winners should now be storied in league history correctly.

Partially Fixed/Workarounds:

As a temporary fix, the free agent list now defaults to the goalies filter to prevent extremely long load times. We have a lot we want to add here in the way of filters and sorting, but it wasn't possible in this patch.

Not fixed yet, but we know the cause of the slow inaugural drafts in custom mode; it'll get fixed next time (so the apparent freeze you see there isn't actually one - it's just the game taking a very long time to process the draft.) It's probably faster right now to make your own picks rather than letting the computer do them for you.

Teams should passing on draft picks in historical mode less often than they were, but this isn't 100% fixed yet, requires some additional investigation and work.

It's now a little more difficult to acquire player rights in a trade, but there appear to be issues with the AI's evaluation of multiplayer trades that require further investigation, it's not working as designed right now.
We're not sure what causes randomly-named saves appearing when using the load feature in Mac games, but deleting the "saved_games.dat" file removes them.

Valuation of "tough guys" adjusted to make them more valuable to the AI in trades/when signing contracts, but it's going to require more tuning and testing to get them to use the players properly in lineups and games.

We can't find the cause of match engine text disappearing from some games, but it may be related to the \Out of the Park Developments\Franchise Hockey Manager 2014\data\text\english.xml file being missing or unreadable - if it happens to you and that file is missing, you should re-download and reinstall.

Home advantage has swung too far in the direction of the home team after being too little earlier, we'll adjust that

[archibalduk]

I've added the download links to your post.

There's a lot there and I think will go a long way towards making the game much more stable. I'm still however going to wait for a couple more patches before I start any serious game.

[dave1927p]

I've added the download links to your post.

There's a lot there and I think will go a long way towards making the game much more stable. I'm still however going to wait for a couple more patches before I start any serious game.

Probably a good idea. I've been pretty much just drafting, resigning players, and signing free agents and simulating all the games. There are too many issues still to play a full serious game but after this patch I now consider it "playable" but to invest in a full serious game might lead to disappointment with some of the bugs and features now working properly. But overall, this patch is a huge step forward and the most relevant one to date.

[kadri43]

I'm still not use to the interface. EHM 2007 was much better.

[watts555]

Any reason as to why I cant get the pictures to load? I placed them in the reqired quickstart folders but cannot seem to get them to load !

** Fixed **
Had to convert files from jpeg to png

[CeeBee]

Tried a Historical game with the latest patch. Set my assistant to do everything except trades and drafting. Got the "microsoft has encountered an error" msg trying to sim past the first game. I had a couple of injuries, one minor but isn't the assistant able to do that when he's set to? Whats the point of simming if you can't sim? o well, back to EHM I go.

[Saapas]

Too many men on ice penalty is listed on penalties topic after a game but it shows 0 penalty minutes for it Also I cannot offer a contract or make a trade offer for players in my junior team