A new update for Franchise Hockey Manager 3, version 3.3.109, has just been released. Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves. Notes: This is one of the largest FHM updates we've ever done, both in terms of fixes and additions. There is an entirely new system for determining starting goalies that gives the user much more scope to decide the way his team's starter will be chosen (and the ability to override that choice) as well as making the AI teams make more realistic decisions about who to start. As part of that, the hot/cold status of goalies is now tracked, which has an impact on their performance and makes the starter decision a little more interesting than just choosing the best-rated goalie. The tactical system has gotten a makeover to make its operation a little more transparent to the user; you can now see the exact numerical effects of changes you make to tactical roles, and the in-game view will specify the exact areas you have an advantage (or disadvantage) in relative to your opponent and by how much, rather than having to rely on a single vague indicator of overall advantage. Saving games has been made safer on a couple of different levels - the save procedure itself has been made more crash/shutdown-resistant so an unexpected game stoppage during the save can't corrupt the entire save, and an option to add rolling backup saves has been added. On the bug-fixing front, we've knocked out some long-standing bugs and many more recently-discovered ones. There have also been a number of other small additions and changes, details below. This will likely be the final major update for FHM3, as we're moving on to FHM4 development soon - we'd like to be able to get the game to you a little earlier in the season than we did this year, and we have a lot of big changes planned. If there are any serious issues with this update (not entirely out of the question, given the number of changes we've made), we will, of course, release a hotfix to correct those. [B]Major Goaltender Changes:[/B] There are two significant new systems for goaltenders: One that tracks how hot (or cold) a goaltender is (and adjusts his performance accordingly), as well as a new starter management system: [U]Goaltender Heat:[/U] -All goalies have a "Heat" rating that tracks how hot (or cold) they are. -The range is 0 to 5, indicated by flame icons (1-5) or the snowflake icon (0) on the goalie section of the strategy screen, and also shown after the goalie's name on the roster and dressed list (e.g. (1)) -The natural resting level is 1, goalies will cool off if they're not used but will only drop below 1 due to playing badly. However, all goalies start each new season at 0 - they'll need some playing time in exhibition games to warm up. -The heat number works as follows: for each game, all of the goalie's goaltending (not mental) ratings are reduced slightly before a game. Then a random number is added to them; the upper bounds of this random number that can be selected are dependent on the goalie's Heat rating - the hotter he is, the more chance of a large number (and if he's cold, that number may be so low that it doesn't get the reduced ratings back to his base level.) -The heat adjustments can potentially reduce the effective star level of a cold goalie by up to (roughly) 2 stars, while a hot one can potentially be raised 2-3 stars (bear in mind these are extremes where the random portion would have to be very unlucky or lucky.) -Events that can raise the heat rating in rough order of the chances of getting an increase): getting a shutout, having a large number of saves in a game, winning a game. -Events that can lower the heat rating in rough order of the chances of getting a decrease): getting replaced in a game (not by an extra attacker), giving up a large number of goals in the game, losing a game. -Heat will also tend to decline if the goalie isn't playing regularly, roughly one point per 3-4 games missed consecutively -Finally, Heat is lowered by 1 point (but not below 1) when a new season phase (exhibition, regular season, playoffs, etc.) begins or when an international tournament the goalie is playing in begins (so a hot goalie going into the playoffs is good to have, but not necessarily a sure thing, and a mid-season international tournament can significantly alter a goalie's hot/cold status for his club team.) -Heat can only be raised or lowered by one point per game. The net effect of this addition is making your choice of starter no longer just a matter of picking the guy with the most stars as long as his fitness isn't extremely low - it now makes sense to do things like start a hot rookie over a veteran starter in the playoffs even though the veteran is better "on paper," - but at the same time, you also need to consider how to get a cold starter enough playing time to get his edge back and maybe get hot himself. [U]Starter Management:[/U] -There's now a "Goalie Starts" tab on the strategy screen. These settings control the priorities the AI will use when choosing your starting goalie for each game, ranging from 0 (ignore this factor) to 4 (vitally important.) -Settings are: Start the hottest goalie, Start the best-rested goalie, Alternate goalies in back-to-back games, Always start a goalie again after a shutout, Start the best goalie, Backup start frequency, and Stick with the starter during the playoffs -Some of the categories are limited in range at certain times, e.g. backup start frequency can't go below 1 after 1965, or above 1 before 1939. -The AI uses these factors and their weighting (and a small amount of randomness) to choose who will start the next game - it'll determine the current situation relevant to each of rules, identify the relative importance of each of them, and put it all together to make a final starter decision. -There's a "lock" checkbox that prevents the AI from overriding these priorities; otherwise, it'll re-choose them whenever there's a roster change involving a goalie or a new season phase begins. "AI Setup Organization" with the lock unchecked will cause the AI to choose a new rules set. -The human user can always override the AI starter choice by changing goalies from the pregame strategy screen (which includes a section for goalies now). In summary, you can set up your own, very specific, priorities for goalie use, so you're not dependent on the AI's cookie-cutter choices - or you can just override them completely and set the goalie in the pregame screen. [B]Tactical System Changes:[/B] The Tactical system has been modified to be a little more transparent: -the "dots" scale for a player's effectiveness in a tactical role has been replaced by a numerical 1-5 rating; these still show the same information as before (although the scale for that was adjusted a bit so the extreme ends are used more) -the first number shown for a player's tactical effectiveness is the actual number of points he's contributing to his team's tactical score, which may be limited by things like the line he's on (the contribution of lower lines is capped relative to the top ones) or whether or not he's in a secondary role; the second number is the theoretical maximum he could have in that role if he were subject to no such limitations -the total tactical score for each tactic is now displayed at the top of the strategy screen; this (after modification for countering roles) is compared to the corresponding tactical score of the opponent (i.e. offensive vs. defensive, PP vs PK, etc.) to determine who has the tactical advantage in that situation - since you're now seeing a numerical score it should be a lot easier to understand (and change) the exact situation, e.g. getting the advantage back for your team or at least reducing the opponent's advantage -the larger the difference between each team's scores, the larger the performance bonuses and penalties on the advantaged/disadvantaged team; the display colours the numbers to show the degree of advantage: green, yellow, orange, red from smallest to largest (the actual advantages are +1 to one player rating, determined by the tactic, +1 to 2 ratings, +1 to 3 ratings, and then at the maximum "red" level, +2 to all 3 of those ratings.) -opponent's roles/tactical scores are now visible, at least to the extent that they're known - if the AI has the coaching advantage and is making choices after you, they may be inaccurate/incomplete relative to his final choices (the coaching advantage indicator is now visible on the strategy screen only, since that's where it's directly relevant. RIP little dude with a crown.) -the mechanism for determining tactical advantage and its extent changed to use the "dots" totals directly (instead of the previous system which stopped a step earlier and just used raw internal numbers) - so the numbers you see on the screen are an accurate representation of what's being used in the internal calculations -the four tactical advantage situations (each teams Offense vs Defense and PP vs PK) are now shown in detail on the in-game screen, with the exact scores of each team (including adjustments for momentum and countering roles), so you can now see exactly where you have advantages/disadvantages, and by how much. -momentum has been modified to consider the most recent events more heavily -The AI (including AI assistant for human teams) should no longer be able to select invalid tactical roles (i.e., that don't meet role requirements for its tactic.) [B]Other Changes:[/B] [U]Interface:[/U] -The Set Up Your Manager screen now includes offensive and physical preferences and several template options for both the GM and coach roles, which will fill out the ratings so you don't need to set them all. -League-style stats leaders screen added for international tournaments. -The team schedule screen now shows the abbreviation for the game result (W/L, etc.) just to the left of the score column. -Full history screens added for all levels of national teams. -"Hire" option on the staff screen's action menu is now available for trainers. -Totals of 1000+ no longer getting cut off on the Player Index screen at resolutions with 768 width. -Awards that are not awarded by a league will now be named "No Award" so it's clear why it's not being awarded in a given league. -Hall of Fame link moved to the manager menu in game modes without international play. -Scouting reports will no longer mention the exact (and occasionally inaccurate) number of scouting reports that have been updated. -The team names on the in-game screen now uses the text colour instead of the secondary colour, so no more blue-on-blue for e.g. Toronto. -"Loaded Game:" text removed from the top menu so more of the game named is displayed. -Right-click assign options for scouts now appear everywhere (e.g. the personnel screen), not only on the Scouting screen. [U]Simulation/Rule Changes:[/U] -Change to historical setup: at the beginning of a historical game, players under age 20 whose rights belonged to a team but who did not actually play for the team in that season (e.g., recent draftees) now only have their rights assigned to the team, they don't automatically get a contract (this should tone down the cuts that happen at the beginning of the game because rosters are too large), -Retirements in historical mode with FHM development off will now be less frequent (typical age bumped back by a couple of years, and a problem that retired a lot of unsigned players in mid-season of the first year of the game was removed.) -In historical games, at-start and newly-generated players now get their aging/development rates calculated the same way (they were being set by separate methodology earlier, and it tended to hurt development of star players in their early seasons.) -Expiry system for NHL rights on NCAA players corrected. -Canadian player generation balanced a little better between regions (more Ontario players than there were previously). -Effect of coaches' Coaching Prospects ratings on younger players lowered - should make development rates for CHL players a little more similar to those in nonplayable leagues (previously their higher development rates were making Canadian, and to a lesser extent American) -Quality of player generation adjusted for several countries. -Pre-1972 historical teams are now allowed to own the rights of up to 75 players (it had been 50, same as the contract limit); will help with the size of the expansion draft pools -International tournaments should now use the 3-point win format instead of 2 -Trading frequencies (which also control transfer frequencies for leagues that use transfers) increased for most leagues. -Transfer cost benchmarks lowered slightly to get teams to make more acquisitions that way -Issue that was causing incorrect RFA designations on contract renewals has been fixed. -US college preference for generated Canadian players lowered slightly. -User's salary in historical games should now be in proportion to other staff salaries. -Historical finances adjusted so teams are less likely to run into roster-limiting budget issues. -Contracts signed by some UFA's no longer ignore NHL entry-level rules. -Potential situation where ELC limits could be ignored by recent draft picks fixed. -Waiver-exempt calculation fixed in historical so all players are no longer exempt. [U]Bug Fixes:[/U] -"2nd goalie is injured" popup will no longer appear if user enters the strategy screen after a goalie injured. -Game will no longer force goalie to be returned to the net if the strategy screen is entered while he's pulled. -Possible crash in first September fixed. -Fixed crash when "AI Setup Organization" is used when playing from a game created with a quickstart. -Missing/incorrect names ("Jim Unknown") in historical fixed. -Players who debut for WHA teams in historical non-draft mode should now appear on the correct team in the correct year. -Hiring staff via right-click from the free agent view of another team will no longer sign the staff to that other team. -GM of Great Britain national teams should now be able to select English players again. -Nationality problem with generated players in fictional games fixed (was limiting their nationalites to a small group of countries, followup to the fix last time that corrected this with the at-start player pools.) -Scouting targets that include references to the QMJHL draft (eligibility, or simply their draft region) should now return results properly. -Problem with some historical players not being generated at 17 in the correct year fixed -Editing a player's contract after July 1, 2017 no longer results in the previous year's contract being visible and saving an extra year to the player's contract even if no edit is made -Teams that make the first round of the 1974-75 playoffs will no longer get the X under "Playoffs" in their history screen until 1979-80 even if they didn't actually make the playoffs in the later seasons -AI teams in historical games with drafting turned off will no longer trade draft picks. -Player's demand in contract renewal negotiations will no longer occasionally be blank. -KHL trade and offer sheet deadlines no longer perpetually one season in the future. -1991 Dispersal Draft results no longer mixed into the Entry Draft history for that year. -Attempting to click on retired players in team transaction histories will no longer result in a crash. -Users will no longer get 3-4 news stories for some international tournament awards. -"Reject" option for junior international job offers should now work properly. -News reports from U-18 tournaments should no longer occasionally display the logo of a CHL team. -League Player Stats screen will no longer go blank if the filter is set to the playoffs. -User will no longer be asked to choose the captain for another team in some circumstances. "X had a great game" message now reports total icetime instead of even-strength icetime. -No longer possible for players to leave the penalty box prematurely when serving a minor + misconduct. -Potential December crash fixed. -Possible crash when saving historical games after 2017 fixed. -Crash when attempting to sign a foreign free agent after demoting foreigners to reserve list fixed. -The stats listed for Star Players on the pregame screen will no longer start games played as -1. -Misnamed Italian U20 logo fixed, logo will appear correctly now. -Defunct teams no longer appear in the free agent preview news message in historical games. -Scouts in historical games will no longer end 16-week assignments prematurely under some circumstances. -Links to playoff game boxscores from schedule screen in historical mode will work now. -Problem preventing playoff game-by-game results from appearing in player screen while in historical mode fixed. -Potential June 30 crash in fictional games fixed. [U]Data Changes:[/U] -All NHL and AHL players and high-level free agents thoroughly updated to reflect current season performances. -Starting injuries adjusted to reflect length of time players actually missed (note that this won't be an exact match due to variability in the injury recovery system.) -Player ratings in the early pre/post-NHL expansion years (roughly 66-69) got a big upgrade to current ratings standards (they were some of the earliest ones added 4-5 years ago and most were a bit too low); part of an ongoing process to eventually get every historical player fully detailed ratings. -Various individual player data errors that affected historical development fixed. -QMJHL goalie with skater ratings has had those removed so he no longer gets mentioned as having the best shot in the league. -Lots of adjustments to nonplayer transactions data to remove some more development traps for young players. -Nonplayable transactions in North American junior leagues adjusted to route fewer players to Junior B out of bantam and midget, and more players to Canadian High Schools in provinces where that's becoming more common (primarily BC and Alberta.) -Historical fighting ratings toned down to lower excessive penalty totals in some years in annual recalculation mode; still needs additional work, but getting closer. -Top prospects for 2017 OHL, QMJHL, and WHL drafts added (will be in 2019 and 2020 NHL draft classes.) -Staff who've already signed for Las Vegas next year had their roles changed to their future roles for the Golden Knights, as needed. -UFA ages in early post-cap era corrected. -Team data in several nonplayable European leagues updated. -Kunlun Red Star given a farm team (Harbin of the Chinese league, formerly farm team of China Dragons of ALIH; their farm team changed to Qiqihar.) -NHL Draft eligibility date corrected. -WHA award names added. -Most league trading and transfer tendencies increased. -Average transfer prices lowered slightly. -Various miscellaneous changes to other leagues and many players and staff. [U]Miscellaneous Changes:[/U] -Major change to save system: saving now uses a two-stage process that will make saves a little more resilient to crashes/shutdowns while saving - it creates temporary save files first and then only replaces the real ones with them if the save process works properly, so a save crash no longer results in a bunch of 0-kb files and the death of your save. Very slightly slower, but a lot safer. -Rolling saves have also been added as an option on Start Screen - Settings - Misc. If this is active, the game will keep the two previous saves in the rs_one and rs_two sub-folders. Bear in mind save files can be pretty big, so if you're really tight on drive space this may not be a good idea unless you clean your save folder out frequently. -Eligibility for expansion drafts (including historical) changed so third-year players (as of draft day) are now eligible and need to be protected. -Fictional games using the NHL setup and real players will now also get the real staff. -Quickstarts will now copy the current graphics folders (jerseys, logos, etc.) to the new quickstart; also fixed some previously-unnoticed problems with other files not being copied properly. -Historical games now default to monthly, instead of weekly, saves. -Various grammar/spelling changes to text. -If a user-created player's age is <18, his NHL and KHL rights are now set to "None"; if he's <16, QMJHL and OHL rights are set to "none", and if he's <15, WHL rights should be set to "none" (should eliminate the need to set this manually and the confusion over why created players weren't getting drafted) -Nationality for created players no longer defaults to Venezuela.