The upcoming update is going to be a very large one, both in terms of new content as well as fixes, so we've decided to run a public beta prior to its release, giving you access to test builds of the new update before the official release. We're hoping this will let us find the type of issues that have been forcing us to issue post-update hotfixes, allowing us to address those before the final release rather than after.
Please bear in mind, if you opt-in to the beta, that these are test builds and may do unexpected things; the whole point of the public beta is to find these problems. We offer no promises that something unpleasant won't happen to any save you use with the beta version, so, if you want to take part with one of your current saved games, it's best to use the "Save Game As" option on the game's File menu to make a new version of the save and use that, so you don't ruin the "good" copy of your save.
Right now we're aiming for a full release of the update sometime the week after next, but that plan could change depending on how long it takes to resolve any issues found in the beta and any new ones that come up. There will likely be at least one additional public beta version prior to that.
The public beta is only available for the Steam version of the game - Steam makes it ridiculously easy to set one up (under an hour for Sebastian and I the first time we do it, minutes afterward), where a Fastspring beta would require us a full-scale release process from us (most of a day for Malte and Sebastian every time we update the beta), which isn't practical to do.
To join the beta:
1. Right-click on FHM7 in your Steam Library and select Properties
2. Click on "Betas"
3. Under "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter the access code, which is "updatepublicbeta" (no quotes)
4. That should populate the "Select the beta..." box above with the option "public_beta - Public Beta", select that
5. Steam should then automatically update your game. If it doesn't do that, check your update queue; if it's not in there, exit and restart the Steam client and it should appear.
Should you wish to leave the beta, just go back to the Betas page and on the dropdown menu select None. Steam will then revert you to the current public version of the game. When the final version of the update is ready, the public beta branch will be updated to that one as well, so there'll be no need to change back to get it.
If you're already one of our internal beta testers, don't join the public beta! You'll lose access to the beta versions we don't release to the public.
If you find any problems with the beta, particularly fixes that aren't working or unexpected issues arising out of the changes made, continue to report them the usual channels - preferably the tech support forum on our boards, the Steam board, or /r/franchisehockey on Reddit, those get checked daily. But, when reporting, please mention that you found the problem while using the public beta.
Contents of beta version 7.3.122:
Notes:
-one significant new addition that isn't in yet is the "Current Rosters" start option that'll update player movements since the NHL's opening night; that'll be added sometime next week
-we're still working on the bug list and some other things, so if something's not on the change list yet it doesn't necessarily mean it won't be addressed in the final version
-there may be some issues with the leaderboards and records screens, as those don't get rebuilt until just before release. If you see anything odd there, no need to report it, it'll be fixed in time for the release.
New features:
-on July 1 in the league structure editor, you can now use the Import Historical Team option to import any playable team from the historical database and Import Team to do the same from the modern database; the rosters will be the same as in Exhibition mode (the import functions uses the same mechanics.) For historical teams, select the team name (usually the latest one for that team, i.e. if you want the 1984 Winnipeg Jets, choose Arizona, or if you want the 2001 Atlanta Thrashers, choose (non-WHA) Winnipeg
-the 3 World Cup of Hockey tournaments (96, 04, 16) have been added to historical mode
-added new options to the Scouting-Watch List screen: "Clear" (removes all players on the list) and "Clear A" (removes all players currently scouted to the A-level)
-added a checkbox option to the staff filter: "Unemployed"; turning it on filters out all staff who currently have a contract
-changed criteria for some of the December "Player Poll Results Released" news item categories, and added a few new ones: Most Controversial, Most Overrated, Most Underrated, Smartest
-added another section to the scouting report in all modes: for every position on the team that the AI evaluates as a weakness, it will show the top free agents/available players at that position (i.e. all players who are either free agents, contracted to a team in this league and on the trading block, or contracted to a team in a league from which they can be signed directly with no compensation)
-added a Leave Game option to the exhibition game start screen
-if the user is in control of their farm team's staff, they now get an email announcing when their contracts are expiring like they would for the main team's staff
-added Auto-Play option for end of playoffs
Changes:
-when changing the selected item in the upper area of the world/tem/league menu (national team/tournament, club team, league, etc.) the most frequently-used screen in that category is now opened, e.g. switching teams opens the roster screen for that team (unless the user is already in that area and changes the selection, then it won't change)
-fixed issue that could select the wrong pick order in 2022 and leave Seattle with no picks
-the 17-24 picks in the NHL Draft will no longer reverse there order under some circumstances
-the first round list on the Entry Draft Order email sent the day before the draft and the Draft Lottery screen now show traded picks correctly
-the July 1 start option is now disabled when choosing the Real 20-21 Start option
-clicking an entry in the Draft section of the player screen no longer opens the draft from the previous year the player was actually drafted in
-the name of the scout sending the NHL pre-draft evaluation email on June 1 is now the team's current head scout
-the "End Negotiations" option (renamed from "Remove Offer") now appears in the action menu on the player screen in addition to the right-click menu
-when controlling an NHL team, the user no longer gets a message on July 7 announcing the LNAH Futures List for the upcoming season, when they should get the NHL one
-the DIFF column in the leagues standing screen is now calculated correctly
-trade offers now get an instant response during the WHL US Prospects Draft, like they do during other drafts
-no longer possible to name the same person as both head and advance scout
-editing a player's disliked club now immediately removes any happiness penalty that the player has for being on a disliked club
-when adding a fictional league to a custom game, after the first league is added, the remaining leagues have the start year and use historical finances options removed from their Add a League screen, since they can't be set separately from the first league
-the DRE column on the roster screen is now sortable
-Vegas is now exempt from the Seattle expansion draft in July 2021
-stats where the calculation involves dividing by 0 now show .000 instead of "..00nan"
-in an expansion draft in leagues with an overage player limit, teams no longer ignore the limit
-in historic mode, the League-League Data screen now shows the era-adjusted values for Typical Salary (Bad/Average/Good/Top) instead of the unadjusted amounts
-fixed potential crash after editing league structure in historical game
-adjusted AI for waiver claims, teams will now be a little more reluctant to make waiver claims (or waiver/intraleague draft picks) for marginal players
-fixed issue that could prevent skipping of some expansion drafts in historical leagues
-fixed waiver claim order prior to November 1 (will use previous season's standings)
-in historical mode, players are no longer being generated to fill the international rosters in years when they're not needed, e.g. South Koreans on July 1, 1918 in a 1917 start; also reduced overall quality of those playewrs
-fixed error that could result in the nonplayable stats system giving players in the leagues that can be playable (but are set to non-playable in the save) far too many games played in 21-22
-fixed problem with custom games that could lead to some leagues ignoring age limits
-right-clicking on a goalie and selecting "Change Supplementary Role" now shows the goalie supplementary roles, not the skater ones
-changed the maximum schedule length in League-Edit-Rules and custom league setup to 84 (it's currently 82)
-fixed display error for 20-21 playoffs in league-history for the NHL once the 21-22 season is reached
-on the History-Awards screen, the Awards 2 view no longer shows a separate line for each season of each award
-changed the scouting system for junior teams, so the #1 spot in the Priorities-Regions list and the Watch List will now get 100% coverage
-fixed issue in custom games where a higher-level league that drafts from a junior league was not able to sign drafted players until their junior contracts expired
-removed "AHL can't be edited" popup on the structure editor for the AHL in custom games
-the Continue button no longer skips past July 1 at times
-reversed the spots of the Ask for Response and Meet Demand Buttons on the contract negotiation screen so the click process flows left to right instead of right-left-right
-if a contract offer is being considered by a player and a deadline for signing him passes during that period, he'll now respond to the offer before the deadline passes
-fixed error that could lead to language mismatches with nationalities in some circumstances when creating a multinational custom league
-on the development reports, the full team name (not just the nickname) is now shown for each player, and players are sorted by team name first, then their last names
-removed the "-" in front of the word Strength on the development reports
-when starting a 20-21 standard game with the Real 20-21 option off and a July 1 start, there are no longer missing schedules for two of the Mestis teams
-in a standard game with the real 20-21 option on, the League-History-Seasons-20-21-Standings screen for the NHL no longer has missing or duplicated division names after 20-21 is completed
-fixed missing uniform numbers and roles for players added in Exhibition mode to fill out rosters
-fixed issue with human-run teams occasionally claiming other players on waivers when the user waives his own players
-custom games with historical finances turned on seem no longer ignore the historical financial settings for starting staff salaries
-fixed occasional crash when autoplaying in historical mode for the first time in a new game
-staff budget limits now recalculated properly after a team's Season Budget is edited
-expansion team Season Budgets corrected to use the proper amount based on the league settings (they were getting a much larger number)
-in historical mode with the draft off, when newly-generated players are assigned to their real teams on July 1, their contracts now have ELC status if the league has the ELC rule enabled
-adjusted levels for the "Unhappy" status icon and happiness level to match the amount used for the "Unhappy" mark on the training screen, so they're consistent with each other
-added more specific error message when a team doesn't have enough players of a particular type dressed
-historical games started in 1994-95 no longer crash in mid-January due to a waiver draft problem
-fixed issue with players who need an ELC occasionally asking for more than the ELC salary limit
-non-NHL teams are no longer able to make transfer offers for players on NHL-Europe loans
-fixed issue with star players accepting preseason tryouts (and subsequently signing very cheap contracts) while they're UFA's
-fixed the nonplayable player movement system moving players to college teams after they've been playing professionally
-fixed error calculating overage status in junior leagues
-attempting to view the Team Finances screen of a team in a nonplayable league no longer crashes the game
-job offers now require a response again, so they won't be missed while autoplaying
-"Save as quickstart" disabled for non-commissioners in multiplayer leagues (so the individual GM's can't cheat by using that to create a new league and look at potentials, etc.)
-in a custom game, when a farm league is created after one other farm league has already been created, , it now list any existing major leagues as an option for a parent as well, allowing e.g. the new farm league to be a farm league of an existing farm league
-goaltenders will no longer occasionally appear in the "Hardest Shot competition" portion of the All-Star game skills competition email
-removed the all-star game comment from the Hall of Fame induction screen for now, since we don't have data for the real all-star game history available yet so every real retired player was getting the comment that he hadn't played in any all-star games
-fixed issue that was resulting in ELC-eligible players who receive offers from both a human player and AI teams potentially reporting that they'd received an offer higher than ELC limits allow
-when staff contracts expire, if the staff member has a reputation too high to sign with his team, he will no longer send a message offering to re-sign, but when the user attempts to do so, refuse the offer. Instead, there should be a separate message for those guys, explaining that they want to leave and won't re-sign
-exhibition mode no longer shows the current ages for all historical players as of 2020, they're shown as of the season they're imported from
-fixed several errors in the world database that were leading to the wrong nationality for players born in Singapore and most of Pakistan
-adjusted AI free agent-signing process slightly so it won't ignore a good player at one forward position when it's strong at that specific position and weak at others
-when a player is acquired via waivers it will now appear on the Career Highlights view of their history tab, in addition to the Transactions view
-if you change a player's primary position using the left-click menu, it no longer sometimes causes him to disappear from his team's depth charts entirely and not reappear until his position rating at the new position increases
-Champions League 21-22 start date moved back to August
-multiplayer commissioners can now see the draft lottery properly
-when a trade is being negotiated during an in-season international tournament, teams in a league that uses a cap floor will no longer refuse trades because the trade would "put them below the cap floor", even when they're far above it (the AI hadn't been counting the players on INT status against the floor)
-player popups now work on the team transactions log
-fixed issue when editing league caps on July 1 that could cause player cap hits to decline when the cap hit is raised, if the team was over the cap when that happened
-a 4-division setup with 8 teams in 3 divisons and 9 in the other no longer causes the bottom-right division on the standings screen to lose the alternating colours on the lines
-adjusted NHL-Europe loan system to better handle situations when which European team the player should go to is ambiguous
-re-worked scouting priority system for scouting to look a little more broadly into the individual zones of the highest priority and second-highest priority map areas, rather than focusing too strictly on the top zone of the top map and not moving on until it was thoroughly scouted
-fixed schedule/season length issues with the Tipsport Extraliga in 21-22 and later seasons in a standard game
-increased minimum number of players that can be scouted per week, and increased maximum number of scouts that will improve scouting reach from 20 to 24
-adjusted roster AI free agent-signing behaviour to be a little more adaptable to the overall level of talent in the league, so it'll continue to attempt to improve the roster even if the low end of the league's talent pool improves noticeably
-the achievements "The All-Swedish Champions" (Win the Swedish second division championship) and Going Up (your team is promoted to a higher league) should work properly now
-adjusted player retirement checks to avoid early retirements for free agents and (particularly) players with a single season left on their contracts
-in a standard game started with the real start option, the NHL all-star game should now work properly after 20-21
-adjusted owner AI to prevent head coaches from being fired extremely early in the season
-adjusted goalie MVP/all-star criteria to take Wins into greater account and make their weighting flexible according to the league's schedule length, so they're not unimportant in short-season leagues
-back button now works properly on the league history screeen for a specific season, so if you click on one of the playoffs/relegation/pre-playoffs/promotion tabs, then on one of the teams on that screen to open the team screen, if you then click the back button it returns you properly to the previous screen instead of going to the team history screen's Season tab, but with no seasons displayed
-if Multiplayer/Online league is checked on the first custom game setup popup, it's now selected on the screen shown next if the player selects "Add Fictional League" (previously it wasn't)
-fixed the Draft Page's Draft Order tab showing the wrong order in some custom game league/playoff format combinations
-teams added to a custom or historical game via Import Hist. Team and Import Team should now get the correct colours
-staff hiring options (right-click and action menu from the staff screen) are now available to the commissioner in multiplayer games again
-when clicking on the current year in the league-history screen, the standings are no longer shown with all the team names underlined
-right now, in a multiplayer game the trade interface doesn't provide any feedback (i.e., saying if the other team is likely/unlikely to accept the trade, etc.) when the other team is human-controlled. We should probably enable that for human-human trades as well, it's useful for the user to know if the trade is even or favours one team or the other.
-very low-potential players will now never request contracts longer than 1 season
-fixed potential June 30 crash
-editing the number of entry draft rounds (via league-edit-info on July 1) is no longer limited to increasing the number only; if it's decreased, any existing picks (including traded) ones for upcoming drafts will immediately disappear; increasing the number back, even immediately, will not restore the traded picks to the team they were traded to
-sorting by GR on the dressed list on the lines screen no longer sorts by name instead
-fixed error in some historical seasons that caused a draft order announcement to be sent on June 30 that doesn't show the correct draft order
-fixed issue in some custom games where, in the League History some of the Best Goalie Award winners wiould lose their stats (on that screen only) after they retire
-corrected error in the scouting report where the weight is displayed in pounds even if the user's preference is set to metric
-various minor text/typo fixes
-various player and team data changes
2D New Features:
-2D player icons are now moddable. The files need to be added on a team-by-team basis, and go in \graphics\rink_pics and use the usual naming format, i.e. the game will look for files in this format: player_chicago_blackhawks_home.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_1989-2012.png, then player_chicago_blackhawks_home_2014.png (i.e., as the logos work; same thing for away teams.) The file should be a 60x60 png - however, you should only use the innermost 36x36 (i.e., everything except the outside 12 rows on all sides) for your design and leave the remaining outside squares transparent, otherwise the icons will look overly-large and may overlap the player's uniform number.
-added option (in Start-Settings) to change positioning of player numbers relative to the player icons - they can now be above, above and to the right, or centered on the icon. If they're not on the icon, the numbers are in black, otherwise they use the previous colouring system
-added hit posts/crossbars
2D Changes:
-players leaving the ice on a change are no longer ignored when checking for offsides
-decreased 5-on-3 frequency, increased frequency of penalties called on power play teams
-significantly increased tendency of players to shoot at an empty net, particularly when closer to it, also changed method for increasing shooting chance when defending net is empty
-reduced frequency of late-game dump-ins by team that is losing a close game
-made players more likely to try for an immediate change after leaving the penalty box when the open position is one they can't play
-fixed tendency of all defenders to chase puckhandler while his teammates go to the bench on a change
-more work on redistributing hit numbers in a more realistic way (fewer D hitting, more F)
-reduced shot block chances when multiple players are in the shooting lane (still increases the overall chance of a block, but not as much)
-increased scoring chance at extremely short shooting ranges
-several penalty adjustments to decrease number of penalty calls while a power play is underway, during overtime, and in playoff games
-increased fight frequency in preseason games and decresed it during playoffs
-fixed a couple of potential crashes
-sped up player movement to bench during on-the-fly substitutions
-changed icing logic to prevent icing when defenders are clearly in position to reach the puck before it crosses the goal line
-made dump-ins more frequent during line changes
-puckhandler will tend to go to the corner/boards when he's alone in the offensive zone while multiple teammates are changing
-increased chances of altercation turning into a fight
-increased altercation frequency in preseason games and decreased it during playoffs
-decreased tendency of players to pass to the teammate with the highest chemistry with them
-slightly lowered shot-blocking chances
-removed reduction of pass/shoot rating when several playmaker-type players are on the ice together
-further adjustment to hitting frequencies between positions, and made hits more likely nearer to the boards
-made players more likely to choose the best pass target option when under pressure
-changed number of defenders chasing an iced puck from 2 to 1
-increased tendency of defending players to maintain separation from their teammates
-adjusted AI of defencemen on puckhandling team to avoid leaving/staying out of the offensive zone while their team is controlling the puck deep in the zone, particularly during power plays
-player icon will no longer remain in penalty box when penalty ends due to a power play goal being scored
-if a goalie is pulled for an extra skater and the opposite team scores enough goals that they're now leading by 3, the goalie will return to the net
-players on bench now overlap slightly so they're not spread out so widely and the benches don't extend so far down the ice
-re-weighted selection of player blocking a shot when multiple players are in position to do so, so it's not slanted so heavily towards defencemen
-added (small) minimum chance of a fight ensuing when two low-aggression players are in an altercation
-slightly reduced shot accuracy
-slightly increased goal chances for accurate shots
-increased pass target priority for defencemen during power plays
-slightly decreased overall shot frequency
-lowered hit frequency
-corrected error with puckhandler occasionally moving into crease
-fixed potential loop when the game tries to call a penalty on a player heading to the bench on a substitution
-fixed potential loop after dump-ins
-fixed incorrect location on some rebounds
