This is our first full update for FHM9 after the release and hotfix. It primarily focuses on fixing the most serious remaining bugs after the hotfix as well as some things that could be fixed relatively quickly, but does also add current rosters as a start option. The next update, which will likely be out a week or so prior to Christmas, will be the first one to add a significant amount of new content, as well as dealing with some issues that weren't fixable in time for this update, particularly things that will require a longer timeframe to fix and test. After that, we'll have 2-3 more updates in the new year, the last one finishing with the trade deadline rosters.
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; this normally happens when the problem is inherent to data created at the start of the save.
Changes:
-the "Current" start option is now available for standard games; with this start, the rosters for the playable teams are up-to-date as of Monday (November 21) morning
College-related changes/fixes:
-on National Signing Day, players under age 20 who want to play for a team but don't get a scholarship offer from them may decide to not sign anywhere (and wait until next year in hopes of a scholarship offer)
-increased college team staff budgets again
-lowered most wage demands for most staff in college and junior leagues
-added National Signing Day option to stop ignoring other teams' nominations if they nominate a player who has committed to you
-college teams can no longer sign more players on national signing day than they'll be able to add to their roster next season
-negotiating skill of the team's General Manager now has a larger effect on National Signing Day/verbal Commitments decisions
-college recruits who are sons of former players will now tend to prefer college teams their father played for
-non-North American players who want to play college hockey now have an increased preference for more prominent programs
-staff will no longer occasionally respond with the "demands are too high" popup when a user controlling an NCAA team attempts to sign them even when there is enough staff budget room available to meet their demand
-when game checks players for unhappiness due to lack of icetime, redshirted players are now not included in that check
-the training screen for college teams now shows academic year
-fixed crash on National Signing Day when clicking on next nomination if user's team was at roster limit with multiple graduating seniors and tried to compete for player
-added Potential/Talent columns to the National Signing Day "Commitments" tab
-NCAA league rights now get cleared when player signs with a professional team or in another college league (so they e.g. don't continue to show up in development reports)
-the NCAA schedule in years after the first one should now retain its proper Friday-Saturday tendency
-redshirted players no longer leave college after four years (was an issue with their pseudo-contracts not getting extended)
-the system that releases college players at the end of their team's season now correctly uses academic year, instead of estimating it from years/experience (was an older system that predated the academic year attribute)
UI changes/fixes:
-added an option (in start screen - settings - interface) to disable the season projection line in the player popups
-the Team-History-Alumni Lists-Draft Alumni (dropdown) now includes players who are still with the team, as well as the departed one
-the salary cap space amounts reported on the team finances screens (monthly/annual/cap obligations) now take into account the cap savings from players on the injured list
-added a Province/State dropdown to the player and staff filters
-fixed issue that was preventing click-and-drag from working on some Macs
-fixed problem where scrolling through the teams and reaching one with a negative budget total (displayed in red) would cause all other teams in that scroll to show their totals in red, regardless of whether they're positive or negative
-made some text changes to the responses given to the user when a player can't be signed
-on the 2D tactics screen, the "Return to Game" button text is no longer cut off slightly at both ends
-various small text fixes
Custom changes/fixes:
-custom games where all-star games have been added will no longer crash on the career stats tab of the player screen when the dropdown on the far right is switched to "All-Star Game".
-fixed issue that could cause player contract requests to ignore ELC limits in custom games
-when generating staff for a new expansion team or for a team created at the start of a custom game, their nationalities will now vary instead of all being from the same nation (but the majority will still be from that nation)
-major leagues in custom games can now sign players contracted to teams in the minor league
-when a new league is added to a custom game, its leaders on the league history screen should now update properly
-if a junior league is created in a custom game (after the first season) and connected to a major league, the players on the initial rosters and on July 1 now have their rights set properly so they're draftable by the major league
-Coachella Valley of the AHL is no longer missing in custom games created with the NHL+AHL+CHL/NHL+AHL setups
-generated players in custom games no longer all get the Caucasian facegen ethnicity, regardless of where they're from
Other changes/fixes:
-if a player controlling a college team defers injury treatment, the injury no longer becomes active when the NCAA tournament (i.e. the second stage after the conference tournament) begins, rather than waiting until that ends
-fixed issue causing some players not to appear in 2023 draft when they should have been eligible
-added a large number of 2006-2008-born real players to fill out the early QMJHL, OHL, and WHL drafts properly
-updated NCAA schedule and fixed switched home/away teams
-fixed duplicated game days in schedules for the NCAA, AHL, ECHL, and QMJHL
-the 32-team playoff no longer skips the second round for some league configurations
-staff generated on July 1 now have proper staff job ratings (Executive/Manager/Coach/Scout/Trainer)
-the "Prospects Game" all-star format (used for the 3 CHL leagues) now (correctly) only plays one game per season, instead of one per participating league each season, and the league schedules now include a proper break for it
-the "player fires agent" storyline event no longer gets applied to some players who are still under contract
-the "Youth Player Movement" message on August 1 no longer interrupts unrelated leagues if "do not disturb" isn't turned on
-mock drafts will now rank players with the Unpredictable trait higher (as the AI does)
-significantly reduced the chance that the AI will mis-identify a player as having the Unpredictable tag while drafting
-the changes to AI roster selection in the World Championships (particularly for Canada and the US, but also other countries) no longer affecting those teams in the World Cup and Winter Olympics as well
-fixed issue causing some of the single-season leaders to be missing from league-history-leaderboards-season in the playoffs category after one season is played
-updated both the historical and modern presets
-records/leaders rebuilt for the new database versions
-adding missing awards history for QMJHL and filled in a few missing awards in other leagues' histories