Fictional League play, improved?

[Rich Tiger Fan]

I'm going to be that guy, sometimes I hate that guy. I'm considering purchasing FHM 8 since it is on sale on Steam right now for $19..99 or oddly enough $17.99 bundled with OOTP.

I didn't get last years version, the last version I have is FHM6, I am just wondering if there has been work done to improve custom fictional leagues?

Or is it still the same setup options it's been for the past versions. I have enjoyed some fictional leagues using FHM but it seems stripped down compared to OOTP.

My number one problem with FHM6 custom fictional leagues was that after 10 seasons or so all of the teams were loaded with talent, half the teams were filled with five star players, it was rare to find even a three star player, it was hard to tell who should be good and who shouldn't since they were all good by the numbers. Anyhow there were some suggestions made to help fix that but nothing seemed to work for me and every league I created had the same issue.

With that being said I'm wondering if I should dive back in as an exclusively fictional player, or will I be disappointed by the progress in this area?

I don't see a ton of fictional discussion on this forum, it doesn't seem to be much of a focus for FHM.

One more question, OOTP allows you to create fictional universes including countries and cities and then choose those as your league country any chance that FHM has something like this now?

[wiggleman83]

I'm a huge fictional game guy and I've been enjoying it

[redtiger7]

What I did was create an historical league using random debut, and then renamed all the teams. That has some issues (like noone being scouted outside the top league, no seeing who's in the draft till draft day, stuck with what draft options were available in teh year you play and it messing things up when you change it) But it does give a nice balnce of talent, especially the later you start.

[Tiger Fan]

Originally Posted by Rich Tiger Fan

I didn't get last years version, the last version I have is FHM6, I am just wondering if there has been work done to improve custom fictional leagues?

Or is it still the same setup options it's been for the past versions. I have enjoyed some fictional leagues using FHM but it seems stripped down compared to OOTP.

One more question, OOTP allows you to create fictional universes including countries and cities and then choose those as your league country any chance that FHM has something like this now?

There are a lot of additions and improvements to fictional play the past couple of versions so I think there will be plenty you like. However, I don't believe there is any of the database flexibility OOTP gives you. As far as I know there is no way to create fictional universes (countries and cities) or even tinker with things like the names database.

I still find my solo fictional-historical league to be entertaining and while I wish I could adjust more things to my liking it still does a pretty good job as a solo fictional league. One glaring example of this is why can I set the nationalities of the players in my league but even if I set it to 98% Canadian and 2% US to try and roughly mimic the 1950s do I still end up having half the staff members be from Europe or even Japan. You can edit them all but it is more work than I want to do.

So if you go in expecting OOTP-like customization you might be disappointed, but that being said there is no other hockey option that comes close that I am aware of.

My number one problem with FHM6 custom fictional leagues was that after 10 seasons or so all of the teams were loaded with talent, half the teams were filled with five star players, it was rare to find even a three star player, it was hard to tell who should be good and who shouldn't since they were all good by the numbers. Anyhow there were some suggestions made to help fix that but nothing seemed to work for me and every league I created had the same issue.

I do see that all my teams are loaded with talent (nearly all pro teams are exclusively comprised of 3 -to-5 star guys) 15 years into my league but that is likely my own fault due to league size. I run a 6 team major league, with a 6 team farm league and 2 junior leagues that total 24 teams. I expect the talent would be much less if I just had a draft instead of the junior leagues or if I went with either more pro teams or less junior teams. Think of it like the issue OOTP has with feeder leagues when you have too many feeder teams

With that being said I'm wondering if I should dive back in as an exclusively fictional player, or will I be disappointed by the progress in this area?
I don't see a ton of fictional discussion on this forum, it doesn't seem to be much of a focus for FHM.

I agree there seems to be very little fictional discussion on this forum and I expect FHM has far fewer fictional (and likely historical too) players than OOTP does.

Off the top of my head I can't remember what has changed from version 6 to 8 but I think there has been a fair bit of enhancement that will be liked by a fictional player. Like I said above, don't expect OOTP customization, but I think you would likely see a fair bit of enhancements for fictional play in this new version. It's not OOTP for fictional players, but what else is.

[Adam B]

As previously mentioned; there's been a lot of improvements made to the Fictional World in FHM8. I'm not going to repeat all things, but I will stress this; if you have a lot of lower level teams, then you're going to find the top league with an abundance of talent. It will even out over time, or as you add additional leagues to the world.

We are constantly evolving the game though, and the Fictional Game has and will continue to benefit from that. We mentioned earlier in the year that there are plans for us trying to be able (in the future) to have Relegation leagues/adding additional teams to other real world leagues, and the Custom Game will help develop that as it'll act as a test bed/template eventually.

[Rich Tiger Fan]

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I am going to jump back in and see it in action. $20 is a fair price for sure.

I love the idea of adding promotion/relegation in the future, that is a feature I was going to ask about, I use it all the time in OOTP.