A new update for Franchise Hockey Manager 4, version 4.5.65, has just been released.
This update is the first one where we've been able to add a significant amount of new content: updated rosters, a new playable league, some interface changes, the 2018-19 NHL/AHL/ECHL changes, and a variety of other things, some of which we've mentioned on the forum already. In addition to that, we've continued to make fixes and adjustments to various issues that have come to our attention.
The update has been stable in testing for a while now, but we'll be watching carefully in the next few days for any reports of major issues. If necessary, we'll issue a hotfix for any serious problems before breaking for the holidays. Some of the team will be taking a break after Christmas, but we'll still be monitoring our forums and Facebook (FranchiseHockeyManager), Twitter (@FranchiseHockey), Reddit (/r/FranchiseHockey), etc. on a daily basis, answering questions and offering help as needed, so if you have any problems or suggestions, please let us know. Thanks for your continued support. The next update after this (aside from any hotfix) will probably be similar to this one in terms of the time frame required to produce it and the content level.
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.
Changes and Additions
-Current Rosters startup option added; these rosters are as of December 11 (for the NHL, up to and including the Dowd-Subban trade.) If you want to use the opening night rosters, they're still available as an option at startup; however, going forward, the Current Rosters start will be the version of the database that gets all the updates and additions. Note for those making and installing mods: the Current Rosters start is in a new quickstart folder, Current.quick. Existing uniform/logo/facegen mods will need to be added to the Current.quick\graphics folder to work with the new start. Copying the \graphics folder from OpeningDay.Quick is the simplest way to do this. Mod makers who've posted to the Steam workshop may want to create a second version of their (non-historical) mods that installs to the correct folder.
-Added "Suitability" indicator on the team tactics popup to show how well-suited each tactic is to the team. The scale is the same 1-5 dots as Familiarity, but note that this rating is only measuring which tactics will work best for the team - not how well they will execute the tactic in relation to their league. The best tactic for a bad team will show a 5, but the team probably won't be as good executing it as a great team whose suitability for that tactic is rated as a 3. The distinctions between suitability levels may also be fairly small; generally, it's not a serious risk to use anything rated 3 or above if you think it really fits what you want to do with the team. 1-2 are the only ones you should really steer away from.
-WSM Liga (Czech second level) is now playable, so all of the Big 4 European hockey powers now have at least two levels of playable leagues. The two playoff semifinal winners join the lowest-ranked Extraliga teams in the promotion/relegation tournament; the lowest-ranked team is relegated and replaced with a team from the third level.
-Real-life 2018-19 changes to the St. Louis/Vegas/Colorado AHL/ECHL affiliate situation will happen when the game reaches July 1, 2018: The Colorado Eagles of the ECHL will move to the AHL, playing in the Central Division. They will become the AHL affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche, replacing the San Antonio Rampage. The San Antonio Rampage will become the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues. The Maine Mariners will be added as a new ECHL franchise (technically, in real life they're a continuation of the inactive Alaska franchise, but for the purposes of this update they needed to have a fresh team record). They'll be Colorado's ECHL affiliate, replacing the Eagles. Chicago will remain the Vegas AHL affiliate.
-Added 20 new storylines and rewrote portions of others.
-Russia removed from the 2018 Olympics and replaced with Belarus (KHL players will participate.) It looks like the Russians may be able to compete in a neutral uniform, but there's no easy way to do that in-game without a lot of special coding, and with the situation seemingly changing on a week-to-week basis right now it doesn't make sense to make that kind of effort for a one-time thing. If something substantially changes regarding Russian/KHL participation before the next update, we'll make more changes.
-Substantially rebuilt the ratings requirements data for each tactical role. This is a step in a major adjustment to the line-building AI; the immediate results won't be too obvious (and in some cases may actually appear to regress a bit, although in practice, even when this occurs the player usage should be relatively realistic), but it'll enable us to make further changes in the next update(s) knowing that this aspect of the system has been stabilized.
-Added an option (in the Settings menu of the Start screen) to turn the UI highlighting of a team's name in all-caps off.
-When an NHL team attempts to return an import player to a CHL team who is at the import limit, the team will either make room for him or release his CHL rights, allowing him to be sent to the minors.
-Added some new ways for AI GM's in leagues that use transfers to make transfer deals, particularly for import players if they're not using all of their import spots.
-Fixed potential crash when clicking on a line in the staff history of a GM.
-Possible schedule conflict between Karjala Cup tournament and Champions League games fixed.
-Added a warning that playing in Do Not Disturb mode while employed will skip the annual performance review unless it's turned off on June 30.
-The new rookie all-star team "award" news item no longer lists the first all-star team instead.
-Fixed alignment of the "Totals" line at the bottom of the team history screen.
-In leagues where no points are awarded for an overtime loss (e.g. historical NHL in 1996-97), the home/road records no longer double-count the loss.
-Fixed potential crash if user accepts multiple international job offers.
-Adjusted historical finances file so shop player option will work in post-2005 games and starting salaries levels for good/great players in the most recent seasons are higher. There may still be some issues with teams starting under the cap in those years, that'll be improved in the next update.
-No-trade and no-movement clauses should now be applied correctly to human-AI trade negotiations.
-Shop Player option no longer available for players with a No-Trade/No-Movement clause.
-Replaced the linked player names in the "Players Need to be Assigned Numbers" PM with the non-linked versions to avoid confusion over where to change the number.
-Adjusted development speed for players who are likely to have long careers - had been too slow, particularly noticeable in historical.
-Adjusted number and type of European players that choose to play major junior (slightly more and better players now); also customized the chances for the major countries rather than a single generic chance to better reflect typical CHL import draft composition as of 2017.
-Increased quality requirement for non-North American players to get the Major Junior junior preference.
-Fixed alignment issues and inconsistent linking of team names on the transactions page.
-Changed the power play strategy screen labels for "Point" and "Defender" changed to "Left Point" and "Right Point" to clarify that a forward will work in either.
-Fixed job offers to the user with $0 or negative salary in custom games.
-Lowered the likelihood of players to refuse to move to a different continent.
-Fixed sorting of remaining contract years on roster screen when a player has signed an extension.
-Leader screen and the overall leaderboards screen will no longer occasionally replace the name of a player who retired during the game with another random player.
-NHL all-star game will no longer be announced on an incorrect date that conflicts with the schedule.
-GM of the Year award criteria adjusted to avoid problem with a small number of long-time GM's dominating the award in short-season leagues.
-Fixed board confidence email description of "disappointing" results when the user wins promotion to a higher league.
-Fixed situation where player will refuse a contract offer or request less money after the player has already met his demands, eventually leading to an error message in his response.
-AI-run NHL teams in modern games should no longer release/waive some recent mid/low-round drafted players while they're still under 20.
-Previous change to slow skater development once it approaches potential tuned down slightly to increase number of players making it to higher skill levels.
-Fixed colour of date text on the league schedule screen to make it readable (had been white on very bright background).
-The Assistant: Create Lines AI should now correctly use players with a forward/defence position (e.g. LW/LD) on a defensive pair if he fits best there.
-Slowed goalie fitness recovery slightly.
-Fixed issue that could result in the same NHL-contracted player being returned to his CHL team repeatedly.
-In the Team Defending Leaders section of the league home page, the SH Goals Against leaders are now displayed correctly instead of showing PP Goals Against.
-If the user is playing GM-only, the dress/scratch and "replace player with" right-click options are now greyed out, since the AI coach will always make his own choices.
-Fixed issue in historical game setup that could result in players not being given their correct uniform number.
-Adjusted trade AI to discourage rebuilding teams from accepting offers for their good young forwards for veterans.
-Players will no longer occasionally refuse to negotiate contract extensions by saying "I'm not interested in further negotiation" as if negotiations had broken off, despite it being the user's first attempt at offering them a new contract.
-The Central Scouting ranking now correctly classifies High School and Junior B players in the North American list, rather than the European one.
-Longer text blocks in assign numbers popup are no longer cut off at the bottom.
-All open contract offers are cancelled when a player is exposed in an expansion draft, to prevent a situation where an expansion team would have to match the original team's offer as if the player had signed an offer sheet.
-Fixed excessive reputations of unemployed staff at the start of the game.
-Older head coaches will no longer occassionally retire the same day they're hired.
-Teams should no longer occasionally re-hire the coach they just fired.
-Players who played with more than one team in their real rookie year and had playoff stats will no longer occassionally start a historical game with those playoff stats shown as real stats for the upcoming season.
-The "Assistant Coach" box in the staff screen can now be assigned by the owner instead of being automatically filled.
-Changes to the NCAA League Rights on the player edit screen now remain saved after saving and exiting the screen.
-In a custom game with 18 teams, 2 conferences, and 4 divisions, in the first round of the playoffs the #1 and #4 teams in one conference are no longer in the same side of the bracket as the #2 and #3 from the other conference, and vice-versa - the conferences stay separate until the final, i.e. 1v4 and 2v3 on each side in round 1 should be from the same conference.
-Longer shootouts will no longer be cut off or overlapped in the postgame box score.
-Fixed issue that caused a small number of players to be generated with birth years of 0 (so age 2017) at the start of a new game.
-The day prior to the OHL, QMJHL, and WHL drafts (June 23), all overage players will now be removed from AI-run teams as if it's July 1 (if they're NHL-contracted, they're returned to their owning team), and the rights to any unsigned players who are overage are also be removed so the AI will have more room to draft new players, resulting in fewer skipped draft picks due to protected list size issues.
-Slightly increased chance for goalie hotness reductions in games where they give up several goals.
-Clicking on team names of U17/U18 national teams in news stories no longer takes you to CHL team pages.
-In leagues that allow transfers, the post-transfer-deadline period has been extended from the deadline until July 1, instead of transfers being allowed again as soon as the season ends.
-If the NHL expands to 32 teams, the news item announcing the NHL draft order no longer shows 33 picks in the first round.
-If, while unemployed, you start autoplaying the day the NHL All-Star game is played, the ASG summary will no longer appear on every day's results screen as if it had just been played.
-The leader page for the World U17 Hockey Challenge now appears after the first game of the tournament instead of waiting until after each team plays their second game.
-Nationality requirements should now be applied correctly to storylines, e.g. European players will no longer get storylines designed for American players only.
-Adjusted stats generation for nonplayable leagues to fix issue with too many players getting 0 PIM in a season.
-Salary levels for above-average KHL players reduced.
-Possible fix for player UI crashes (e.g., first time you click on a player after starting a new game, there's a crash).
-Conditions for player nationality switches (i.e. second nationality becomes first) restricted, they'll only happen if the player is 23+ and is switching in a way that makes him more likely to play on a national team, i.e. switching to a weaker team.
-Criteria for news stories about high-profile injuries should now be applied correctly so 1.5 star players aren't referred to as "stars".
-If a player is injured and you immediately replace him in the lineup before advancing to the next day, you'll no longer get the popup warning to check your lineup when you attempt to advance, even though you've already fixed the empty spots.
-When a CHL team signs an import player from a user-run European team, the user will get notification of the signing in his news.
-Overall loss totals in leagues with overtime, but 0 points for overtime losses, should be shown correctly now.
-The offers from the shop player in CHL leagues should be less generous and more reasonable now.
-The DGR column on the roster screen should now sort properly at all stages of the season.
-VAC status will now end properly if a player with it is claimed on waivers by a team whose season is started.
-The contract generation for players during historical setup will now give fewer players entry-level contracts (should only be the youngest ones now.)
-The "big game" news can now describe tie games properly, so a good player result in a tie won't be referred to in the text as e.g. a "2-2 loss."
-Corrected conditions for completing Blues historical challenge.
-Winning the Kings challenge will no longer give the user the Panthers in-game (i.e., non-Steam) achievement
-True Franchise Manager achievement (10 years with one team) conditions fixed for some non-NHL leagues
-Some players in Ivan Hlinka Cup will no longer start with 1% fitness.
-Fixed problem with storyline conditions that require a losing streak not triggering properly.
-Various minor text and UI fixes.
