Eastside Hockey Manager 1 Patch v1.5.0 Public Beta Released

The new patch for Eastside Hockey Manager is now available to download! The patch has been released as a public beta requiring users to opt-in to the beta. Instructions on how to opt-in are included below.

It has been over four years since the last patch was released for EHM back in January 2017 and this is reflected in the lengthy changelist (see below). The patch includes, among other things, better stability (including a fix for the crash where too many leagues are selected for a new game), improved regen/newgen generation and improved AI behaviour. Indeed there are already early reports from users on Reddit that AI drafting is much better than before (see here). A massive THANK YOU to Riz who has taken on so much feedback from a small group of TBL and roster makers over the past couple of years.

Whilst the patch is currently described as a beta, it should be noted that this has undergone a decent amount of informal testing by a small number of community members for quite some time. It does however require further internal quality assurance testing internally at Sports Interactive which is why this is being described as a beta for now. This patch represents a significant improvement particularly with crashes/ instability when running prior roster updates. We highly recommend everybody opts-in to the beta.

Roster Updates

Given the limited resources, the Premier Pivot Rosters and TBL Rosters will only be released in the new v1.5 database format going forward. The first v1.5 format version of the Premier Pivot Rosters was released earlier today and the TBL Rosters will follow suit in due course. Consequently you will need to opt-in to the v1.5 beta in order to continue using the Premier Pivot Rosters or the TBL Rosters.

Technically it is possible to manually convert these back to v1.4.1 format using the unofficial EHM Editor (simply open the database in the Editor, change the Database Version on the ‘Home’ screen and then click on ‘Save’). However, the v1.5 patch introduces additional Potential Ability ranges and playable league flags which are incompatible with EHM v1.4.1 – so it is unlikely that the converted rosters will work as normal in EHM v1.4.

EHM Editor

The EHM Editor has been compatible with the v1.5 format database for around a year and there is no issue with loading any v1.4.1 or v1.5 format databases using the Editor. Any database which is in an old EHM 1 format can be easily converted to the v1.5 format by following these simple instructions:

• Open the database in the Editor;
• Click on File -> Home and select ‘EHM 1034 (v1.5 beta-2)’ from the Database Version drop-down menu [note: I will be tweaking the description of the ‘EHM 1034’ item in the drop-down menu to reflect that this is now a released version in the next release of the Editor];
• Save the database.

Some of the additional database settings/ screens available in the v1.5 format database are currently hidden in the Editor as we have been waiting for the public beta release before making these visible and editable. I will be releasing a new version of the Editor in the coming days which will have all of these settings/ screens enabled. This includes a new Contract Details screen which allows additional contract data to be set for players; such as year by year salaries and contractual clauses.

Incidentally, I will be changing the version numbering scheme of the Editor to coincide with the v1.5 release. The next version of the Editor will be called version 1.0.0 and future releases will follow semantic versioning. The Editor cannot really be regarded as a beta anymore given how long it has been around and the amount of use and testing it has undergone – hence it makes sense to refer to it as version 1.x.x from now on.

EHM Assistant

Sadly it appears that the EHM Assistant is not compatible with EHM v1.5. I am trying to contact the author of the Assistant to see if he can share the source code so that we can make this compatible with the latest version of EHM 1.5.

How to opt-in to the beta

• Open Steam;
• Go to ‘Eastside Hockey Manager’ within your Steam Library;
• Right-Click on the game and select ‘Properties’;
• Select the ‘Beta’;
• Via the ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into’ dropdown, select ‘public beta’;
• This will now begin the download process for the Public Beta update;
• Close the Properties panel by clicking the ‘X’ in the top-right hand corner and launch the game when the download has completed.

Frequently Asked Questions

The patch news release from Sports Interactive includes a very useful FAQ which I thought would be helpful to repeat here:

Can I use the Public Beta to play my game normally?
Yes, you can. We ask users to back up their save games before moving across just in case, but yes, you can play this version just like normal.

Can I use load my old 1.4.1 saves in the 1.5 Beta?
Yes, you can. When loading saved games from the current release version (1.4.1) the saved game is automatically converted to work with the 1.5 Beta improvements. However, some fixes and improvements only apply to new games started on 1.5.

Can I use go back to using version 1.4.1?
Yes. During the 1.5 Public Beta phase, you can always opt out of the beta and go back to playing the 1.4.1 version.

Can I use go back to using 1.4.1 with a save from the 1.5 Beta?
No, games saved in the 1.5 Beta will not load in the 1.4.1 release.

Can I join network games using the 1.5 Beta?
If the network game host is also running the 1.5 Beta, you can join using the 1.5 Beta. Network games hosted on 1.4.1 cannot be joined using the 1.5 Beta and network games hosted with the 1.5 Beta cannot be joined with the 1.4.1 version.

Changelist

The full changelist is as follows:

New features:
————-
– Improved Join Network Game screen to include option to remember the connected IP by name and a list of past games remembered (up to 5)
– Added starting option to retain DB wages for players/staff without any possible adjustments (league min/max limits still apply)
– Added config file option for limiting the Potential Ability of game created extra players at game start and newgens in historical databases until a given year (for usage see HISTORICAL_DB_PA_LIMITATION in extra_config.cfg)
– Enabled waiver draft support for National League in historical databases (waiver draft needs to be set to “not extinct” in the database to enable it)
– Added optional player attribute highlighting in the player attribute panel based on preferred role or selected role (only available for players who have a scouting report)
– Added options in Preferences to control attribute highlighting (Disabled, Enabled All, Enabled Key/Essential only)
– Added new random potential options in the database for player/non-player potentials:
– PA -20 = random between 150 and 200
– PA -19 = random between 130 and 180
– PA -18 = random between 110 and 160
– PA -17 = random between 90 and 140
– PA -16 = random between 70 and 120
– Added functionality to help test custom database league structures with a Test Leagues option on the Selected Leagues screen on the first day of a newly started game

Database and Importer changes:
[apply to new games started with newly imported databases only]
——————————————————————————–
– Added extra rule for marking nations not counting as foreign in transfer rules (value 163)
– Added extra rule for maximum number of foreign goalies (all teams) in transfer rules (value 164)
– Added extra rule for maximum number of foreign goalies (domestic teams) in transfer rules (value 165)
– Added extra rule for minimum contract length in years in transfer rules (value 166)
– Added extra rule for overriding draft minimum age in draft extra rules (value 167) (only applies to the hardcoded drafts included in the game)
– Added extra rule for overriding draft age cut-off date (player needs to be of minimum age before this date in the draft year) in draft extra rules (value 168) (only applies to the hardcoded drafts included in the game)
– Added extra rule for overriding draft maximum age (domestic players, if lower than general max age) in draft extra rules (value 169) (only applies to the hardcoded drafts included in the game)
– Added extra rule for overriding draft maximum age (all players) in draft extra rules (value 170) (only applies to the hardcoded drafts included in the game)
– Added extra rule for defining the date of the waiver draft in draft extra rules (value 171) (only applies to the National League waiver draft if waiver draft is enabled, if not set the draft default date is Oct 1st)
– Added extra rule to disable draft lottery (value 172) in draft extra rules (only applies to drafts with a hardcoded lottery)
– Added extra rule to disable participation to Olympic tournament (value 173) in transfer rules (only valid for North American leagues)
– Added extra rule to define the number of continental A licenses given out in transfer rules (value 174)
– Added extra rule to define the number of continental B licenses given out in transfer rules (value 175)
– Added extra rule to define the number of continental C licenses given out in transfer rules (value 176)
– Added extra rule to define league as a candidate league for continental A licenses in transfer rules (value 177)
– Added extra rule to define league as a candidate league for continental B licenses in transfer rules (value 178)
– Added extra rule to define league as a candidate league for continental C licenses in transfer rules (value 179)
– Added extra rule to define team to receive automatic continental A license every year in transfer rules (value 180) – note that you need to list all A-license clubs with this rule or alternatively not list any at all in which case the teams are picked from the defined A-license leagues
– Added extra rule for marking nations that are considered non-agreement nations for defected players in relation to player rights to keep rights from expiring normally (value 181)
– Added verification and fixes for invalid database version numbering when loading some custom databases to start a game with
– Added support for “Regulation Wins Only” league sort rule (value 12)

Gameplay changes:
—————–
– Club histories are now processed at the start of the game to find possible club records for most points etc. in custom DBs
– Fixed regular season finishing position in manager history being duplicated in some leagues
– Adjusted the minimum number of players needed on roster before emergency players are created
– Improved logic for determining most suitable contract start date for signing players to contracts starting at the end of current contract or at the end of season
– Fixed some transfer date issues for future transfers that need to go through after a few years based on the contract start date
– Improved AI scouting accuracy for both current and potential ability to better reflect their judging abilities
– AI GMs/scouts put more emphasis on raw potential when drafting
– Fix to picking teams from lower league stages for situations where the league fate has not been set correctly even though the league has ended
– Better support for custom cup competitions
– Added notes about extreme low/high value of pass tendency into the player scouting reports
– Fixed players with long term injuries not being counted against the cap on human teams despite not being on Injured Reserve list
– Adjustments to player wage request levels
– Adjustments to player interest levels – especially older players moving back to their native nations to end careers
– Some fixes to player rights expiry handling
– Improved AI managers signing pending restricted free agents to new contracts
– When evaluating last standings positions for teams before the draft, the top playoff teams are now sorted correctly behind the league champions
– Fixed a bug with a player being drafted not getting the rights expiry calculated correctly
– Adjusted the “most overrated” player in the team report to exclude players with high enough current ability in relation to club reputation
– Improved handling of award reputations in the game and their effects on award winning player reputation (for full effects, new career game is recommended)
– Adjustments to AI shortlisting and contract negotiations
– Improvements on restricted free agent interest in re-signing with their current team
– Fixed contract cap hit getting recalculated when a player is traded
– Fixed contract sign date being updated when a player is traded
– Adjustments and fixes to scheduling of games, especially in playoff stages
– Adjustments to jersey retirements to prevent lesser players who played a long career at a club from getting jersey retired too often
– Added a check for the “signing bonus counts against cap” rule on extensions (signing bonus was previously automatically always included)
– Improved financial modeling for teams playing in a league in a country other than their domestic nation
– Improved placement and career paths of young players in the US junior/high school leagues
– Improved performance when checking league extra rules that are linked to particular club unique ids
– Improved general AI accuracy of evaluating player potential in relation to judging potential ability
– Fixed instances of Entry Level Contracts signed very late in the season but just before season update from sliding unnecessarily
– Adjusted development of high potential players
– Adjusted effects of player role on generated attributes and attribute development
– Fixed inactive teams in leagues with upper age limits and no overagers allowed sometimes attempting to sign overage players
– Fixed an issue with the secondary sorting of league tables in some edge cases when using regulation and overtime wins for sorting
– Fixed initial unrestricted free agent contract demands (wage and contract length) in the first summer to be more realistic, especially in custom UFA DBs
– Added more secondary positions for extra players generated at game start
– Added more secondary positions for players loaded from the database if no secondary positions have been set
– Fixed extra player creation at the start of the game adding players to junior teams who were too old
– Fixed players born earlier than the “overaged” birth year to not be intered in signing in junior leagues where the extra flag (162) for the overage type was not set but overagers are allowed
– Improved development of generational talents in their teenage years to be more ready to play professionally at age 18-19
– Fixed salary cap checks in off-season when team is over the normal salary cap but under the off-season cap
– Fixes to major junior rights expiring too soon in some cases
– Fixes to continental competition team selection and team selection to prevent possible issues in custom database games

UI changes:
———–
– Added link back to club screen on the club history screen
– Added display in league information screen for the rule on which nations do not count as foreign
– Added information to league rules page on trapezoid rule and shootout winning goal rule if used in the league
– Fixed the comp information displayed on season schedule list
– “Divisional Standings” view now also shows the playoff separators if the divisions are all separate initial stages
– Some small fixes to the divisional/conference standings screens
– Added contract start date to the contract details shown for pending future transfers in team transactions screen
– Fixed the league link with logo in some places displaying wrong text next to the logo
– Fixed the team link with logo in some places displaying wrong text next to the logo
– Added “Buried Contract Cap Hit” information to player contract details panel if league has the applicable rule
– Small fixes to drawing of dropdown menu buttons
– Fixed the team calendar screen monthly view to use the European/North American date format preference for week start day
– Fixed “Club Payroll Room” from appearing in the club finances screen when there is no salary cap in the league
– Steam Workshop screen now shows the local path of the installed items as a tooltip on subscribed items
– Select Leagues screen at game start will now show the Database author field in the screen subtitle if filled in the db data
– Added display in league information screen for the rule on which nations are considered non-agreement nations for player rights expiry
– Fixed a glitch where the “Description” panel on the Non-Player Profile was in some cases overlapping the player stats panel at the bottom if the person had a player profile as well
– Scouting Report panel now also lists the player’s own preferred role next to the career role evaluation of the scout
– Some color clash fixes when checking team jersey colors
– Fixed non-player/player bio to not display time at club when “club join date” was not set in the database
– Fixes to alignment of generic club/comp logos on some screens
– Off-season salary cap information displayed in comp financial rules if off-season cap differs from normal salary cap
– Some layout improvements on Salary Cap Chart screen
– Added Extension Signing Bonus to Contract Details screen if a player has a contract extension setup
– Improved club Salary Cap Chart screen to show effective current season cap hit and nominal cap hit for each player if they differ currently
– Added Club City Location data to be displayed on the team information page as latitude/longitude
– Added Team Location view in League Information screen to visualize relative team locations
– Fixed small team logo and team name text overlap on Team Affiliates in Team Information screen
– Fixes to Club History Competitions screen when attempting to view histories of individual competitions that are in-active
– Changed Age column on Team Screen – Other view to list Birth Place
– Fixed new arena name not displaying in “Planned relocation” label on team info screen
– Fixed fixed legacy label for “Based in” league information display for some leagues to display just the database information
– Fixed grey error/info popups to redraw when switching back to the app window if focus had been on a different window
– Added support for “Regulation Wins” column in league tables
– Added the name of the database used to start the game on the “Selected Leagues” screen (new games only)
– Expanded contract end date description in person contract details panel
– Added off-season cap limit to the team finance details when the league has an off-season cap and the club is in off-season

Other changes:
————–
– Fix for custom databases that add new leagues with teams from other nations than the league nations, where small teams were sometimes not loaded into the DB due to low rep
– Fixed “Select All” or selecting nation on the “Select Leagues” screen not activating All-Star games in some custom comps when multiple comps are linked to the same leagues
– Added link to “League Rules” and a note to suggest reading the league rules to the team introduction news item
– Fixed possible crash when terminating a scout contract after going into their profile from the scouting screen
– Fixed season preview news item for very large leagues by limiting the number of reported teams to maximum of 45
– Improved handling of custom league/cup draw date data
– Fixed a bug with custom leagues in small nations where new teams with no reputation set were not found when setting up the league
– Fixed a possible crash issue with teams with a nation set but no division set when creating exhibition games
– Better support for custom leagues/cups where teams from another nation take part in a domestic league/cup of another nation
– “CAREER_HISTORY_TEAM_NAME_CHANGE” commands from import_config.cfg can now also be added to extra_config.cfg
– Historical team name changes logged with above command also apply to player draft information displayed in the game in various panels
– Fixed player salaries that were not set in some custom historical dbs for National League being calculated to be too low at game start
– Fixed some possible crashes related to the draft screens
– Fixed an issue where the time of day was reverting to morning when loading a saved game that was saved in the evening
– Fixed a crash with the fantasy draft when more than 40 teams are involved (maximum number of teams in fantasy draft is now up to 99)
– Fixed possible crash with large custom leagues (40+ teams) when setting team last positions before draft
– Fixed crash with large custom leagues (40+ teams) when setting up regular season winner at the end of the season
– Added support in the editor/game to make Major Junior Import Draft extinct in the editor for historical databases
– Upped the maximum possible number of teams listed in the draft lottery news for the first round order from 30 to 50 to better support custom leagues
– Allow award histories more than 30 years old to be read in from the DB
– Fixed some possible crashes when viewing club histories by competition
– Fixed club histories position from database being displayed wrongly (one off) in club histories by competition
– Updated club histories tracked by the game to list past standings data position and comp using the initial conference/division when appropriate
– Fixed a crash when viewing some non-playing staff in custom databases with an invalid preferred job set
– Improved error messages in case of problems when scheduling a league from a real schedule template
– Improved processing of config file entries
– Fixed a crash when processing an error from a league with a mismatch of promoted and relegated teams
– Fixed an error message “ROSTER_MANAGER::compile_roster() – array overrun” appearing in some custom DB saves with a lot of team affiliations for one team
– Fixed leagues with a host arena set for use with the playoffs/finals scheduling all games of the team playing at the host arena during the season as home games
– Added support for custom leagues where an odd number of previous stages feed into a playoff stage with different amount of teams from each stage
– Fixed a crash bug with a prospect update news item when a team affiliate had no division set
– Fixed possible crashes related to loading up too many leagues/transfer rules when creating new games
– Improved extra config file processing stability and fixed a number of possible crashes when reading config entries
– Fixed league award histories to be loaded at new game start even if the winner for the past year is no longer an active person in the database
– Fixed db based club records with no active person data but name strings loading up with random looking names
– Added a progress dialog when parsing config files when starting a new game to help track possible errors in custom config files
– Fixed a possible crash in historical databases with staff/player nation set to an extinct nation
– Fixed a possible crash in custom databases with linked comps set unnecessarily
– Prevented creation of extra players at game start for clubs set to extinct nations
– Fixed a possible crash when using custom databases setup with a comp that starts on an Olympic year but is also set to run at 4 year intervals and set to skip Olympic years
– Fixed an error/crash when attempting to “Print All” from the club screen
– Fixed sorting on “Stats” to default to Points when printing data from the club screen
– Fixed old job information in manager appointment news text
– Changed transfer/trade deadline news to be sent in the morning instead of evening
– Added error logging for processing of extra config file (see ‘C:Users<username>AppDataLocalSports InteractiveEHMLogsEXTRA_CONFIG_ERROR_CHANNEL.log’)
– Improved staff look-up for extra config entries to only look for wanted player/staff at the given club (excluding retired numbers config) to prevent picking up wrong players with same name
– Fixed possible crash on staff contract details panel if contract end date set in the custom DB was before game start date

In-Game Engine v85
=========================
– Scoring level adjustments in general
– Adjustments to better bring out the technical abilities of the very high end players
– Adjustments to the number of shots taken

In-Game Engine v84
=========================
– Adjustments to energy and condition levels during game based on tactical settings
– Adjustments to penalty calling AI
– Scoring level adjustments