The fourth and final full update for FHM9, version 9.4.104, has just been released.
Notes:
Thanks to everyone who reported issues during the open beta, we fixed a number of things we wouldn't have wanted in the final release. This will be the last of the major update to FHM9, barring any necessary hotfixes. We're moving into the planning and design stages for FHM10 now; hopefully what we come up with will be as well-received as FHM9 was.
There are quite a few new things this time; we managed to catch up on a few delayed projects. The "Current" rosters are updated to their final version, but unlike in past years the cutoff date is about ten days after the trading deadline (so March 12), and a little later than that for the NHL. We've also added eight new historical challenges on a general theme of "...and then it all went horribly wrong...". 2D mode has seen a number of changes to the mechanics used during breakout plays (and corresponding forechecking by the defending team) that should produce breakouts that more closely follow what you'd expect to see with your chosen tactical options (the general principle is similar to what was done earlier with improving the exedcution of special teams tactics.)
Historical mode received several improvements to the handling of the Cleveland-Minnesota merger in 1978 and then the corresponding Minnesota-San Jose dispersal draft in 1991, and we also added a large number of players who played in the AHL in the pre-draft era but never made it to the NHL.
GM season score calculations received a light revision, we updated a number of 22-23 European playoff formats, we've added shot charts to 2D mode (and to boxscores for both modes), we added a new goalie start scheduling system (which should mainly be of use in multiplayer, but will also allow precise control of goalie starts if you want to use it), and a long list of smaller changes:
Changes/Additions:
-database updated with post-trading deadline rosters; for the most part rosters are as of March 12, but I continued updating NHL signings, etc. for several days beyond that. Junior/college players who've signed NHL contracts (not renewals) beginning in 23-24 remain with their old CHL/NCAA team with a contract set to expire after this year and a future contract that activates July 1, 2023. Retained-cap contracts should all be set up properly now, with their cap hits lowered and the same amount applied as a cap penalty to the team that retained salary (Side note on the real life trading deadline: the AI doesn't yet know how to do the double-retention trick of passing a player through two trades to reduce his cap hit to the new team by 75% of its original value, as in Patrick Kane's move to New York, but that'll be something we'll try to get in for next year, assuming the league doesn't clamp down on it)
-breakout plays in 2D and corresponding defensive forechecking will now tend to follow the formations specified in the breakout/forechecking tactical settings much more closely (similar to the earlier adjustment that made teams more likely to maintain their selected PP/PK formations) (probably will need a bunch of refining, this is just the first attempt at it)
-added eight new historical challenges (they should all be active both in the game and on Steam now): Toronto 2003-04, New Jersey 1995-96, St. Louis (Eagles) 1934-35, Pittsburgh 1968-69, Detroit 1970-71, Buffalo 1986-87, Florida 2009-10, and Colorado 2003-04 (see the historical challenges setup on the start screen for full descriptions)
-added Dispersal Drafts in 1978 (Cleveland/Minnesota; the 5 worst teams in the league can select a player off Minnesota's protected list) and 1991 (Minnesota/San Jose; San Jose selects unprotected Minnesota players); Cleveland players will also transfer to Minnesota at the start of 78-79
-lowered most of the budget amounts in the Wage Budget setting to correct the trend of long-term leaguewide budget increases
-increased effect of player talent on jersey sales
-improved criteria for the top scorer predictions in the Season Preview email
-when checking if a team is above the cap floor, team is also credited for the cap hits of any players currently on INT status or the disabled list, so the roster AI in pasrticular won't need to add salary if they're close to the floor and have injuries to expensive players, resulting in a bunch of unrealistic temporary moves
-increased starting funds for expansion teams in standard and custom games
-the 7-game 3rd-place playoff series in the Mestis is now a single game
-changed the German leagues quarter-final series to best-of-7 from best-of-5
-changed the HockeyAllsvenskan quarterfinals to best-of-7
-added 270 players from the pre-draft era to the historical database; this is pretty much everyone who played at least half a season in the pre-1963 AHL or its predecessors but never made it to the NHL
-Season Score Changes: added a "Met Objective" yes/no category, it'll be a Yes if the team's final ranking in the entire league was equal to or better than its season objective; added Longevity Bonus: 1 point for every consecutive season prior to this one where the user was GM of this team; added a "Financial Health Bonus": If the user's team is currently in the top 20% (rounded up) of the league in terms of Ending Points (on the financial screen), it will add from 1-8 additional points to their score
-adjusted junior preferences in newly-generated players to reflect the post-Covid, post-Ukraine invasion trends (fairly sharp dropoff in Nordic and Russian players heading to North America, but college/major junior preference will be more common in a few smaller countries now)
-added new AI transfer behaviour that attempts to simulate teams with a rebuilding outlook selling off some of their better players who have expiring contracts, as well as increase the frequency of transfers made at/near the deadline (deadlines have also been adjusted from January 31 to February 15 for a number of leagues)
-Liiga teams are now allowed to sign contracted players directly from Mestis/Suomi-Sarja teams in the offseason for a fixed fee of $25000 (we'll probably elaborate on this in 10 to allow for in-season moves as well, this is an intermediate step towards reflecting the real-life mechanics better)
-added shot location overview added to 2D ingame stats ("Shots" button on the Stats screen) and boxscore (for games in both modes)
-added manual game by game goalie start setting (goalie starts tab on the lineup screen) - if the start is set to anything except AI, it will override the normal starter selection with the goalie listed
-added nickname back to the personal details section of the player screen (on the line under Name)
-added new filter options: dropdown list for "Junior Preference", "Rights" option (league dropdown, then team dropdown within that league + all/free/none options), Region" option, and changed ratings filter to Minimum/Maximum rather than just Minimum, "Maximum" checkbox below the ratings section of the player filter popup that switches that filter to use the values specified as maximums rather than minimums
-users currently controlling a team in a league with a high reputation (roughly ECHL level or better), they will not get any national team job offers for national teams ranked >25 in the IIHF rankings or any U20/U18/U17 teams
-when a team has a farm team in a league that allows promotion and it gets promoted to the parent team's league, the parent league will get their reserve list activated so they have a place to store players who'd normally go to the farm team
-on the "Assign Numbers" popup, if the player's desired number is already used, retired, or honoured, there will be another option between the "Desired Number" and "Choose Another Number" lines, "Suggested Number"
-significantly reduced the local language skill level at which players become much less reluctant to sign in a foreign league on another continent (was 150, now 75); in particular this should improve the ability of teams to re-sign their foreign players after their first contract
-made a number of modifications to the team harmony incident system so teams with recent negative events or a lot of controversial players will be more likely to suffer incidents
-added new Thai and South African U-18 teams, which will allow the lowest level of the U-18 international tournament to function correctly (hadn't been working due to an inadequate number of teams)
-restructured the generic leagues representing lower-level leagues in major hockey countries and the top-level leagues in very minor countries; these are now arranged in four groups of similar overall quality levels, rather than the previous approach of lumping leagues of dissimilar talent values together based on their name alone, e.g. "Division 3" of Swedish hockey no longer has worse in-game quality than the top level of play in, e.g. the UAE or Thailand); this should improve the flow of players into/out of these leagues as well as the realism of their generated player stats
-updated transfer deadlines in several European leagues from January 30 to February 15
-the contract negotiation screen now allows salaries higher than $20000000 to be entered by the user
-updated modern and historical presets files (modern presets add a few missing injuries and corrects the length for some guys who were expected to come back but have missed the whole season as well as updating captains/assistants for the playable leagues; historical adds some new entries and fixes a few data formatting errors)
-in historical games (only), the chance that the AI mis-identifies a player as having the "unpredictable" tag (that causes their potential to vary) has been removed (that feature isn't used in historical, so it doesn't make sense to have the AI try to react to it; the AI was making some strange draft picks as a result)
-changed foreigners-dressed limits for foreign teams in the Mestis, Suomi-Sarja, and German leagues - the previous setting was allowing Zemgale and Tilburg (if they were promoted) to have full teams of non-Europeans. Also adjusted the same setting in the KHL to get Kunlun to use an appropriate number of foreign players (not a perfect solution for all of those issues, but the best we can do at the moment with the tean roster settings)
-added "Compare Players" to the Action menu on player info screen
-added Height/Weight/Shoots to compare player
Fixes:
-in the alternate ("fhm", not dark) skin, the text in the player Bio tab no longer shows up as black on a dark background
-in multiplayer games, NHL training camp tryouts are now disabled (they wouldn't work properly, as the decision is instant and conflicts would exist if teams invited multiple players and then submitted their rosters; previously tryout offers were allowed in multiplayer but not included in the data sent back to the commissioner, which would break lineups; this removes the ambiguity and the lineup errors)
-fixed loophole in the harmony intervention system that could lead to a player getting a conflict with himself due to a failed intervention
-during breaks in 2D play when the Player Stats popups appear, the New Stats popup now also appears, rather than having Show/Hide Stats cycle back and forth between showing one or another, and never actually hiding anything
-made adjustment to 2D engine that should reduce the number of situations where, when there are only 2 offensive players past the blue line, and they repeatedly pass the puck back and forth
-the "PPC/PPG" numbers are no longer reversed on the new Team Stats tab for game reports and in the Stats screen for 2D games
-fixed issue with AI tactical role selection for goon/enforcer roles; the AI should now tend to assign Enforcer/Goon tactical roles to players with the Enforcer-type templates more often
-players will no longer request some types of bonuses and then reject them
-if the user already has the maximum number of players added to his side of a trade, the "Make this Work" button will now be greyed out properly
-the Global Financial Coefficient setting (File-Setup/Options) will no longer revert to 0.000 if any adjustment is made to it
-fixed issue in custom games with historical finances turned that was causing a sharp decline in team budgets after 5-10 years
-fixed issue that could cause AI-run NHL teams to release players during the season without a buyout/cap penalty
-when looking at the tactics tab of the lines screen, if a specific line is selected it will no longer occasionally include some players from other lines (we found some that were missing from the previous fix for this)
-shot chart background image will be copied to existing saves so the chart isn't on a blank background in those games
-on the team staff screen, the "Owner" box at the top-left no longer has the word "Owner" repeated in the middle of it, partly overlapping the Nationality and Confidence in GM lines
-fixed issue with contract limits at the start of the game that was releasing some players from NHL rosters
-fixed potential crash in edited historical mode games if the playoff system requires a number of conferences/divisions different than the league structure)
-blockbuster-type trades at the trade deadline will no longer occur between two teams both in Win Urgently mode
-after nominating a player during the Verbal Commitments draft and winning the competition for him, the user will no longer see the National Signing Day version of the response message
-removed the system that adjusts player birth dates in the WHL/OHL/QMJHL if they're outside the usual league age range (which was making 15-year-olds with exceptional player status in real life older than they should be)
-fixed issue in trade logic that was causing teams looking to make a trade for a draft pick in the days just prior to the draft to focus only on 7th-round picks
-fixed crash when clicking the back button (or using the mouse shortcut) to back out of a player profile after opening it from a link in the boxscore
-fixed issue with the activation of a cap in mid-game in historical mode that was breaking the finances for a few teams
-when the second Penalty Kill 3 on 4 unit is selected on the Unit tab of the Tactics screen, the Fit Scores will now appear properly instead of all being shown as "-"
-fixed watch list sorting after returning to it from player screen
-fixed short list selection when returning to it from player screen
-made a number of small text/typo corrections