FHM8 Complete Change List

[JeffR]

Well, mostly complete - I haven't included much detail about the usual huge number of changes at the database level - updating ratings, teams, and league strctures, adding new players to historical, adjusting things like baseline salaries, team budgets, and league trading frequencies, updating parent-farm relationships, and so on. And putting this together required digging through nine months or so of past e-mails, planning documents, and update notes, so I'm sure I've missed a few things. But if you're looking for a full list of what's new in FHM8, this should cover almost everything.

2D Engine Changes:

-added On-Ice Decision-Making: When playing a game with a team you control in 2D mode, you will be allowed to make decisions for the puckhandler in some situations (although, depending on the player and the situation, he may decide to ignore what you tell him, e.g. players probably won't shoot from behind their own goal line even when you tell them to.) This can be enabled/disabled from the Options menu, it's off by default.
-added In-Game Feedback: While viewing games in 2D mode, you will get feedback if your current tactical tendencies aren't working well or are inappropriate for the situation, and have an opportunity to adjust them. Some of this feedback will occur while the game is underway, other parts of it between periods.
-new On-Ice Player Behaviour: Players will alter their playing style depending on the game's events - for example, a player who is subject to a lot of physical punishment may become intimidated, or a defender who repeatedly lets puckhandlers around him may start positioning himself more conservatively. This feature is integrated with the new In-Game Feedback system, so you may be able to take steps to counteract those situations.
-added pregame warmup and national anthem lineup animations
-added a "highlights" option that'll allow you to view only the game's key moments
-made a significant modification to goal-scoring chances based on the passing ability of player the shooter received the puck from (if the pass reception immediately preceded the shot); this has had a significant effect on assist and point totals for the top players, particularly playmaker types
-if a .wav file named in the format "nation_anthem.wav" (where "nation" = the name of the country the game is being played in) is present, it'll be play during the anthem portion of the pregame animation
-opening music won't play in the warmup if the game year is before 1980
-refined player movement planning; results in much lower amount of short, jerky back-and-forth movements in favour of smoother point-to-point movement
-increased tendency of players to adhere to their team's plans and formation for each zone, particularly during power plays
-made a number of internal adjustments, particularly in player and puck pathfinding, to increase overall simulation speed
-fixed issue causing puck to be unreachable on some dump-ins
-corrected problem with calculation of puck movement speed during dump-ins
-the Zoom Level option should be saved properly now, so it doesn't require reloading every game
-goals by the home team should no longer be booed
-improved defensive response to puckhandler's decision to hold up and wait with the puck
-lowered overall minor penalty frequency slightly
-lowered percentage of penalties called as unsportsmanlike conduct
-added a goal celebration animation
-adjusted puck movement speed on dump-ins
-increased frequency of offensive zone passing
-adjusted player pathing during dump-ins, particularly for players chasing the puck
-"play" button now labeled "pause" when play is underway
-added a background to the arena showing people in the stands
-the appearance of the ice surface will degrade over the course of the period (at the 5/10/15-minute marks)
-fixed issue with players being unable to reach the puck in some situations, particularly dump-ins
-fixed problem with defensive players failing to recover the puck on dump-ins despite reaching it first
-adjusted mechanics for game ratings (GR, OGR, and DGR) in 2D to get them closer to the classic-engine equivalents
-fixed huge scoring totals in 2D games in leagues generated with a custom structure
-made several baseline adjustments to get stat levels, particularly scoring, back in line after the fixes to the issues creating unreachable pucks
-lowered number of takeaways
-revised a number of role-specific behaviours, primarily to promote up-ice movement by the offensive team
-fixed excessive frequency of role confusion
-fixed some situations that could cause an un-recoverable puck during rebounds
-improved player movement during tipped/blocked shots
-fixed some of the game-introduction play-by-play text so it's not grammatically incorrect for teams that don't follow the City-Nicknames naming pattern
-fixed recording of the stick-side shots/saves stat in 2D games, so all high shots will no longer be recorded as glove-side shots
-reduced tendency of players to head for the bench on a change shortly after faceoffs
-reduced tendency of players to head for the bench on a change when near the puck
-refined puck movement on icing plays
-slightly increased range at which player will begin to attempt a deke on breakaways and odd-man rushes
-increased preference for defencemen as pass targets in the offensive zone during power plays
-made slight adjustments in shot type preferences based on puck location

Other Changes:

-added new Financial System: When controlling a team, see the new Monthly and Annual tabs on the team finances page. Each has options that can be changed on the 1st of the month and July 1, respectively, that give the team bonuses/penalties in various areas; accumulating funds can also be used to do things like improve arenas or build new ones
-added Seattle Expansion Draft: Same system as was used in the Vegas expansion, i.e. if you choose to play Seattle in a standard game you can choose to draft your roster rather than using the actual Kraken lineup. Note that, as we did then, the actual list of available players was trimmed down to exclude UFA's who signed somewhere after the draft
-Junior, College, and European leagues in historical games have been significantly fleshed out, so young players will no longer just be free agents before they're signed/drafted and will instead be assigned a league. As part of these changes, the Sponsorship/Affiliate system that was used by the NHL up until the 1960's is now sdimulated as well
-European teams will now be able to take steps to improve the quality of the young players entering their youth systems
-added Special Abilities: this new system adds more individuality to players by special attributes and abilities to simulate things beyond what can be modeled by the regular ratings system - big hitters, players with exceptional charisma, particularly skilled fighters, goalies who like to try for a goal on an empty net, faceoff cheaters, and many more
-trading difficulty can now be adjusted, allowing for easier or more difficult trade negotiations
-the in-game news will now show rumours about potential trades and retirements, particularly around times (like the trading deadline) when they're likely to happen
-an additional Leaders screen has been added, showing the players leading the league in Game Rating, Offensive Game Rating, Defensive Game Rating, Rookie Points, Shifts, Giveaways, Takeaways, Hits, Fights, and Game Winning Goals.
-a new "Auto Play Until End of Today" option has been added that sims all the current day's games without advancing to the next day
-Commissioner Mode can now be enabled while in Challenge Mode (but doing so takes the game out of Challenge Mode)
-players now delay their response to any contract offers in the first week of July, allowing entry drafts to occur before any free agent signings, but still permitting negotiations with the players during that period
-player scouting reports have been redesigned to provide more information and a more readable format
-Custom games can now add tournaments that allow the participation of teams from multiple leagues (similar to the Champions League or Memorial Cup)
-Custom games can now add new leagues after the game has started
-players now have a user-editable Notes view that can be used to record your own notes, reminders, etc. regarding them
-updated import feature for FHM7 standard and custom saves; historical save import is going to require some more elaborate work and will be in the first post-release update
-the trading interface will now show the trading partner's current cap situation
-the Champions League draw is now handled by an event screen similar to those for Awards and Draft Lotteries.
-added news announcements for league and team leaders in jersey sales for each month
-a new filter option ("Transfer-eligible") has been added to make it easier for GM's in leagues who allow cash transfers to identify potential transfer targets
-revamped league and tournament history Records and Leaderboards screens - and the tournaments now have their own game records screen
-added season ticket sales announcements
-a number of things are now editable that previously weren't, e.g. players' spoken languages, team cap penalties, the league fights per game setting, minimum/maximum ages for drafts; additionally, players' injury and suspension status can now be edited without being in commissioner mode.
-Player Popularity code has been totally reworked to be more realistic; now makes make more use of hidden ratings and less of stats
-the changes to 2021 NHL Draft Lottery mechanics have been added (no moving up more than 10 spots, etc.)
-A new "Triple Gold Club" screen tracks players who have won the Stanley Cup, Olympic Gold, and a World Championship
-ECHL teams no longer have AHL parents, to prevent excessive roster clutter from AHL teams sending them down a lot of players
-increased the amounts players will request/teams will offer for the minor-league salary of two-way contracts
-added warning when selecting farm teams during opening setup
-owners now retire/sell teams a little later
-made some improvements when calculating team cap status that significantly decrease day-to-day processing times
-fixed crash when clicking the Assign button on the Assign Numbers popup if there were no longer players needing number assignments
-adjusted Stat-Adjusted Talent mechanics to avoid issues with low numbers of GP played in 2019-20 and 20-21
-made a minor adjustment to lower the top end of players offered in response to Shop Players
-the "AI Assign Scouts" dropdown option on Team-Scouting now selects an Advance and/or Head Scout if the jobs are currently empty
-on File-Setup/Options, the rescale button for the Hall of Fame now rescales far enough for leagues with very short schedules
-Champions Hockey League games no longer have continous sudden-death overtime periods - they go to the shootout after the first OT period
-removed the "Av. GR" and "Last 5" columns from all the League Scouting tabs (Futures List, Watch List, etc.) and replaced them with Height and Weight
-added an option to the load screen to not save the current save before loading the new one (i.e., same as exiting a game without saving)
-added some extra AI mechanics to historical to encourage movement of the best players out of the nonplayable leagues
-default sort on the League-Transactions-Trading block screen is now ability, then potential, both descending
-added a FO% (faceoff win percentage) column to the Expanded 1 view of player career stats
-modified trade mechanics a bit to make it harder for a human to get good draft picks (rounds 1-4) from the AI for a group of relatively poor players; you'll now need to include a reasonably valuable pick/player in the package for them to accept (even on easier trade settings); shop player offers will now also get screened by the same criteria
-on the "Interesting Player on Waivers" popup, add another line has been added showing the name of the player triggering the alert, his position, and his current team
-fixed potential crash late in first season of standard games
-Donbass Donetsk is now in the 21-22 CHL in place of the Belarusian champion
-if you've started contract renewal negotiations with a player, then send him to the minors and another team claims him on waivers, the contract offer will no longer remain open
-the presets file with injuries/suspensions is now applied to custom games that use the default start year (i.e. if the include NHL players, they'll have their real 2021 injuries)
-when the NHL is added to a custom game during setup, in addition to the players contracted to the NHL team, it now also imports any players whose NHL rights in the db are owned by an NHL team but aren't contracted to them; they start them as free agents (but with the rights intact)
-players 21 and under now have a $0 cap hit in the KHL (players age 21 and under previously weren't being exempted from the KHL cap, which was causing AI roster management issues)
-adjusted starting repuation for staff in historical games (had been too low, leading to excessively low salaries for them, when in turn led to the staff budgets being too small)
-the WHA General Draft should now be held properly in games that start before 1972, and will set the rights of undrafted players to free, allowing the starting WHA teams a better chance to sign full rosters
-added a checkbox option, "No New Players", to the "Add League" option in custom games (off by default); if it is selected, when the new league is added, no new players are created on the rosters of the new team or as free agents -increased nonplayable PIM stats for enforcer-type players
-nonplayable league goalie GP should now be much higher
-fixed issue with Polish playoffs that could cause a crash
-reduced number of days off at the end of the NHL season to reduce chances of the playoffs not ending before June 30
-fixed issue with new league creation in custom games that could cause a crash
-the "Projected First-Round Picks" section of the Scouting Report should now show players in the correct order
-Fixed an issue with the KHL cap calculation in future seasons.
-There's a new "Goalie Shot Stats" option on the player stats dropdown (e.g. on the roster screen or league-stats-player stats ), showing the following: Pad Shots (PS), Pad Goals Against (PGA), Glove Shots (GS), Glove Goals Against (GGA), Stick Shots (SS), Stick Goals Against (SGA), Shootout Attempts Against (SOAA), Shootout Goals Against (SOGA), snd save percentages for each of the above.
-added a new Postgame Analysis screen; this will appear the game as another tab on the box score screen and display various data about good, bad, and notable performances during the game (note that the amount of detail will tend to be greater when the game is played in 2D mode); seems to be an issue with it right now where all player roles are reported as Screener, we'll fix that
-adjusted player development/youth system costs up a bit
-adjusted movement of players aged 15 and under in Europe to the better-funded youth systems and added a new news story (should appear on August 1) summarizing these moves
-trade rumours will should no longer list the player's current team is a potential trade destination for him
-fixed issue with AI annual spending where it would base its choices on its funds prior to July's expenses, potentially leaving the team with negative funds due to overspending
-made some changes to the team finances - summary screen to make the column order a little more logical and clarify which items are revenues and which are expenses
-in the goalie shot stats view, moved the % columns adjacent to the 'A' column for the relevant stat
-the extra RFA's we added to custom games with an NHL league should be assigned to the correct team now
-reduced the percentage of very poor-quality players in the player pool at the start of a custom game
-added a new Postgame Analysis screen; this will appear the game as another tab on the box score screen and display various data about good, bad, and notable performances during the game (note that the amount of detail will tend to be greater when the game is played in 2D mode)
-reduced the percentage of very poor-quality players in the player pool at the start of a custom game
-made some changes to trade logic for loan-type players (good players in their last contract year) at trading deadline, should increase their frequency
-teams should now make fewer waiver claims of goalies who are similar to the ones they already have
-players claimed on waivers now get a temporary no movement clause for the remainder of the season, preventing them from being sent down or traded
-fixed missing draft in random debut historical games that have editing turned on during setup
-fixed issue resulting in incorrect description for durability in the scouting reports
-salaries generated in the quickstart for players with $0 salaries in the database should now be much closer to random contracts generated in-game
-increased weighting of "Start the best goalie" in the goalie start system
-using "save as..." to save a game under a new name will no longer break the user's inbox the next time the game is reloaded under the new name
-the Gold/Silver/Bronze medal icons on the player screen for winning international tournaments will no longer disappear for skaters after July 1
-added "hockey card" images to the pregame screen and the autoplay screen that appears on days when no games are scheduled
-increased the percentage of games "played" for players in nonplayable leagues (players were only playing about 80% of their league's scheduled games)
-fixed various grammatical issues in the text
-fixed issue causing some players to not get their WHA rights set to free if they're not selected in the WHA general draft
-added new Simulation Options (in File-Setup/Options) to allow using 2D mode for human-owned teams/leagues only, and simulating the rest (team-only is now the default)
-adjusted training camp tryouts in historical to only allow them for players eligible to be sent to the team's farm team (otherwise, they would sign junior-age players and release them when they couldn't be sent down)
-the NHL start date is no longer very late in non-Olympic years
-the 2026 Olympics are now in Italy, 2030 in one of Canada/USA/Japan/France/Ukraine/Germany/Norway
-scout retirement news is now only shown for the user's team
-the Training tab on the team screen should no longer be partially cut off at smaller game resolutions
-adjusted AI scouting priorities when the user has a WHL/OHL/QMJHL team to properly cover areas outside the team's province/state
-made another adjustment to goalie start priorities for the AI to encourage favouring the best goalie
-made another increase to nonplayable PIM stats for goon/enforcer-type players
-further increased GP for goaltenders in nonplayable leagues
-adjusted AI captain selection routine to reduce preference for younger players and strongly increase preference for retaining current captain
-the AvgShft stat in Stats: Time on Ice in League-Player stats screen should now be calculated correctly
-fixed contract negotiation problem that could cause the response box to be empty, with nothing happening when you click "Meet Demand"
-fixed Spengler Cup standings screen, it should no longer just show a player tree
-correct problem causing July 1 player generation to create some players in smaller countries that have badly broken ratings - offensive abilities of 1000+, Physical 900+, Mental in the 400's, Defense <100, etc.
-increased cost of arena quality improvement
-if you start a historical game in 2017 and choose Vegas as your team, clicking league menu-Junior Leagues no longer crashes the game
-adjusted player declines to happen a little earlier, too many guys were continuing to improve in their early 30's
-during the offseason retirement check on June 30, increased chance of retirement for older players who are free agents or on a farm team
-fixed issue with language learning that was making players much too slow to improve their language skills
-fixed name generation for generated players in several countries who used some of the newer name sets: Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, etc.
-in historical, if a schedule is regenerated in Olympic years in 1998 and later, there will now be an Olympic break included for the NHL (and WHA/WCHL if active)
-WHL/OHL/QMJHL teams should no longer sign additional foreign players after already having 2 signed
-fixed description of players with >200 rating in a language (was showing up as Good, should have been Fluent)
-fixed broken playoffs in historical leagues where the schedule length is edited
-lowered mental peak age a bit (player mental skills were increasing a little too late, making players peak later than they should)
-increased mid-season reduction in some hidden/mental skills for good players who are still free agents or are in a league well below their skill level
-add a new filter: "Contracted but signable" - selecting this will filter the list to players in leagues from which the user can sign the player immediately even if they have a contractg; this is now a default option in historical games (only) (since there will no longer be a lot of free agents listed during the season)
-increased frequency of rental-type trades for 19-year-olds in playable junior leagues
-on the contract negotiation screen, the "Current Negotiation Mood" text is no longer partly covered at the end by the icon
-the "Most Underrated" player in the December "Player Poll Results Released" news item will now exclude most of the better players in the league in favour of someone who's less prominent
-added a new check that may reduce a player's Bravery after suffering a major injury
-fixed potential crashes during lineup selection and while starting games in historical Olympics tournaments
-added international popularity to the roster Biography view
-if a player added to a human-run NHL team on a tryout is unscouted (E-level) by them, they now get scouted to D-level by the head scout
-increased likelihood of retirement of players who have been inactive for multiple years
-fixed wrong person being shown in some son/father fields in historical
-the "Scouting Update" PM in historical games now includes all players whose league rights in the user's league are set to "Free"
-Create Player now uses the same mechancics for language assignment as the July 1 player creation routine, so e.g. players from English-speaking areas in Canada don't have a large chance of being unilingual French-speakers
-when a user's team enters the offseason, if his league uses a draft, all draft-eligible players (up to a certain quality level, but there's a low bar) whose Scouting Level is Currently E have a chance of getting scouted once by the team's head scout (This represents the scouts sending video, second-hand reports, etc. on potential prospects they haven't seen directly back to the team's scouting department so they have basic information about the player)
-fixed problem with csv boxscore exports (boxscore_skater_summary.csv, boxscore_goalie_summary.csv, boxscore_period_penalties_summary.csv, boxscore_period_scoring_summary.csv) to be showing the current team (at the time of the export) of players involved in the game rather than the team they were on during the game
-the AI will no longer sign free agents with active serious injuries (>100 days remaining)
-fixed AI issue that was causing some unusual player movement (sending down star players, etc.) at the end of the preseason
-the same player rights can no longer be included in multiple trade offers simultaneously
-added a new choice in the Manager Options for historical editing: "Playoff Changes"; leaving it on means the league will update its playoff system at the times it normally would if editing hadn't been turned on
-made a UI change on the Team-Lines-Power Play, Penalty Killing, and 4 on 4/3 on 3 screens that prevents a line from having low percentage of icetime than a line higher than it (i.e., the top line on the list must always have the largest icetime share)
-reworked the old "Mood" hidden rating to Likability and incorporated it into player popularity and some new systems (e.g. jersey sales)
-adjusted AI to decrease frequency of unusual off-the-board high draft picks
-fixed problem causing some players are remaining in nonplayable junior leagues long after they become too old for them
-KHL entry-level contracts will now apply only to junior-aged players
-during contract negotiations, players will no longer occasionally respond that the user's team's offer has been outbid by the user's own team
-$0 "contract offers" (created when user opens negotiations but doesn't make an offer) are now cleared after one week
-fixed issue causing the AI in historical games is occasionally sign players from its protected list in the first preseason despite the user having all the team control settings set to human
-exhibition mode now allows you to play two historical teams from the same franchise against each other
-non-Russian KHL teams are no longer limited to 5 players who are not local or Russian
-fixed issue with the formatting of the Champions League Standings screen
-fixed issue causing strange goalie waiver claims when a team had two or more better goalies than the one on waivers
-clicking an award icon on the player screen now opens the history screen for that award
-fixed player generation issue that was resulting in smaller countries occasionally producing a player with badly broken ratings (extremely high in some ratings categories, completely minimal in others)
-fixed issue causing long load times in Olympic seasons
-renamed North American bantam/midget leagues to U15/U18
-wherever a nationality flag is shown, mousing over it now shows a tooltip with the country's full name

[Bones26]

Impressive...keeping an open mind and my fingers crossed. Wishing good gaming to all the FHM8 players this coming season.

Cheers!

[SirMichaelJordan]

Haven’t seen it listed so before I purchase, is there a setting to increase injuries? The option to decrease it was added in FH7 but what about increasing?

[DrunkenTeddy]

Originally Posted by SirMichaelJordan

Haven’t seen it listed so before I purchase, is there a setting to increase injuries? The option to decrease it was added in FH7 but what about increasing?

Yes there is a setting to increase or decrease injuries, I believe there are 5 options for how often they occur.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by DrunkenTeddy

Yes there is a setting to increase or decrease injuries, I believe there are 5 options for how often they occur.

Is this accurate? In another thread a dev said that this wasn’t in.

This is a deciding factor to stick with my save in FHM7 or upgrade to FHM8

[JeffR]

No, there's no way to increase them short of editing every player's injury proneness rating.

[Edster007]

I will get this out of the way early because I bring it up every year and since we have in game decisions now.... I would love in the future if on dump ins or stoppages you had a pop-up to chose which line is up next, with of course an empty fifth line that you can click 3 players into if you want to shuffle a line if you coming off a string of special team play and want to get some guys ice time.

[SprongShowHKY]

I appreciate starting a historical mode and not being able to get the top prospect pool rankings out of free agency

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by Edster007

I will get this out of the way early because I bring it up every year and since we have in game decisions now.... I would love in the future if on dump ins or stoppages you had a pop-up to chose which line is up next, with of course an empty fifth line that you can click 3 players into if you want to shuffle a line if you coming off a string of special team play and want to get some guys ice time.

Line change choices are coming, it was part of the original design for in-game decisions but there wasn't quite enough time to implement it. We're going to try to get it in the first content update (not the very first update, the first one where we add new stuff to the game.)

[albee797]

Does FHM8 have the ability to print anything like standings and league leaders for all of your saves like OOTP? For me this is the most important feature that has been missing in previous versions

[Edster007]

Originally Posted by JeffR

Line change choices are coming, it was part of the original design for in-game decisions but there wasn't quite enough time to implement it. We're going to try to get it in the first content update (not the very first update, the first one where we add new stuff to the game.)

I’d hug you for that but don’t want to hear from ootp HR


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[progen]

Is there an option to turn off the "stars" current ability and potential ability ratings like you can in OOTP Baseball?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by progen

Is there an option to turn off the "stars" current ability and potential ability ratings like you can in OOTP Baseball?

Not completely, no. Hasn't been much demand for it; with baseball you can infer a lot more about player performance from the stats than you can with hockey, so it's a little more workable there to not have a rough idea of the player's ability and potential.

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by albee797

Does FHM8 have the ability to print anything like standings and league leaders for all of your saves like OOTP? For me this is the most important feature that has been missing in previous versions

Not directly to the printer; there is an option to export game data as csv files (World menu, at the bottom.)

[G-Force]

Can you import players and then have it run an inaugural draft?

GH

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by G-Force

Can you import players and then have it run an inaugural draft?

GH

They won't be included in the inaugural draft pool (since that's created when the game is generated) so they'll start as free agents. I'll see if there's a way to get them added, but that may require some mechanical changes to the way that draft is handled internally.

[skirmish]

Love the improvements to tactics feedback. If I'm not mistaken the tactical role score calculations have been adjusted as well? I swear my 19 Power Forward was only a 17 in FHM7. Seems to be easier to distinguish what roles players are really best suited to now.

Unless it's just been that long since I updated their tactical roles...

[Edster007]

Originally Posted by JeffR

They won't be included in the inaugural draft pool (since that's created when the game is generated) so they'll start as free agents. I'll see if there's a way to get them added, but that may require some mechanical changes to the way that draft is handled internally.

That would be amazing if it is doable-I never asked about it because one of the games I run is a bit out of the ordinary so I never thought it would fit into what is for the overall good of the game-I do it as an online league but I set all the teams up. Importing and then assigning free agents to a team is time consuming.

[GMO123]

For a standard game, using NHL teams,

is it possible to use fictional players, all players generated by AI (instead of creating a custom game to get fictional players)

and/or

having a draft of all NHL players when starting a new game, so that NHL teams would start with no players and the players would be chosen in a draft of all current NHL players?

[JeffR]

Originally Posted by skirmish

Love the improvements to tactics feedback. If I'm not mistaken the tactical role score calculations have been adjusted as well? I swear my 19 Power Forward was only a 17 in FHM7. Seems to be easier to distinguish what roles players are really best suited to now.

Unless it's just been that long since I updated their tactical roles...

Nope, didn't change anything in those formulas this time.