We've just released a hotfix update for FHM2, version 2.8.63, to correct some small issues with the previous update. The correct seeding and home advantages should now be applied in later rounds of the current NHL playoffs and in some historical seasons where it wasn't using the correct format; additionally, historical budgets have been adjust in the late Original 6 - early expansion eras so teams should now have enough money to sign a full roster and a reasonable number of reserves, which should prevent issues with too many good young players not getting signed.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

Our bonus update for FHM2, version 2.8.61, has just been released.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

General notes: We hadn't planned on doing another update, but as we began work on FHM3 it turned out that one of our early interface changes, the addition of the often-requested depth chart, was very easy to add to the older code. So, rather than make you wait until next year, we decided we'd give it to you now as a thank-you for your ongoing support of FHM. That also gave us the opportunity to throw in a few more small tweaks and fixes in other areas, where it was quick and safe to do so, and make some small database adjustments.

Changes:

1. Elite player generation for the non-major hockey countries (outside the top 8-10) has been tuned down, the B-Pool type nations can still occasionally produce a player that's a potential NHL star, but not a superstar and only very rarely (i.e., no more than one every couple of decades.)

2. Potential among generated players has been rebalanced at the highest level, so the talent distribution of the Superstar/Hall of Fame caliber players will be less uniform. Basically, more 5/5.5-star players and fewer 6+ ones. Additionally, the allowable range for potentials in generated players has been increased slightly.

3. Junior preferences (college vs. major junior vs. Europe) in generated players adjusted to increase the number of players, particularly higher-potential Europeans, willing to play major junior.

4. Players' junior preference is also now visible on the player screen (Profile page, Contract section, at the bottom.)

5. German league and playoff rules updated.

New Additions:

6. A depth chart view has been added to the Team menu (at the end of the list, after Scouting.) It lists all the players you currently have signed or own the rights to, in approximate order of their current ability. In addition, there's a prospect roundup that identifies your top younger players (in order of overall potential), and a list of all the draft picks you own in the next three drafts (assuming your league has a draft.)

Bug Fixes:

7. Higher-potential European players should now use a different table for selecting their junior preferences, as intended, instead of all players selecting from the table intended for lower-quality players.

8. News stories about award winners should no longer appear twice at the end of the season when playing a major junior league.

9. Miscounting of CHL protected lists during the CHL Import Draft fixed.

10. KHL two-way contracts should now function properly.

11. WHL third-round playoffs should now seed correctly.

12. The database typo that put Milan Michalek on the Senators' roster in the Current start is fixed, he'll be a Leaf now.

We've just released a hotfix for FHM2, version 2.7.54, to correct two problems with last Friday's update. It fixes a bug with historical trading that resulted in AI-run teams treating all players as if they had just been acquired, preventing them from trading with user-run teams, and an error with the NHL draft order not being set correctly in seasons after the first one.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

Our seventh update for FHM2, version 2.7.53, has just been released. Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

General notes: This will, barring any unforeseen serious problems that require a hotfix, be the last update for FHM2. We've tried to address as many high-priority/frequency requests as possible, but, inevitably, weren't able to get to everything. In some cases, particularly AI roster handling, we're running up into the limitations of the current AI designs. As we've indicated before, a complete replacement of the roster AI, which is built on some of the oldest code in the game, is going to be the major "under the hood" change in FHM3; once that's done, that'll give us a lot more flexibility to improve the realism in that area. As well, we've now got a long list of good suggestions for improving the game; while we didn't have time to implement as many of those as we'd have liked, they'll definitely play a role in what we decide to do with future versions.

We were able to make some changes, though: First, we've done what we can to address the issue of teams immediately releasing/trading players they've just acquired. It's not a perfect fix, but has made those situations much less likely to occur. We'll definitely be making a more permanent solution when we overhaul the roster AI in FHM3. Additionally, draft pick trading by the AI will now be more common; however, it still won't be quite as frequent, particularly for first-round picks, as it is in real life. We tried a setting to mimic that, but it led to some very undesirable AI behaviour, so we had to tone things down a little. But you should see much more AI trading of picks, particularly near the trading deadline and immediately prior to drafts.

Changes:
1. Teams will now be much less likely to trade or release players they've just signed or traded for; they may outright refuse to negotiate for these players when in trade talks with a human GM.
2. AI will now trade for draft picks more readily.
3. AI scouting will now use its scouts regional strengths more efficiently and tend to keep scouts in their "local" area unless its overall priorities exclude that area completely.
4. The AI Lineup assistant will no longer call players up on its own to fill out a roster, ignoring the Transactions/Roster Moves assistant settings.
5. NHL injury list minimum is now 7 days instead of 14, and the counter should correctly be set retroactive to the injury date.
6. Salary requests by young European players to their local leagues lowered considerably.
7. Valuation of players in transfer negotiations will now put a much higher emphasis on their potential, preventing high-potential young players from being bought very cheaply.
8. ECHL-FHL affiliations adjusted to prevent FHL rosters from being overwhelmed by ECHL-contracted players.
9. Power Play and Penalty Killing line AI has been adjusted to place less emphasis on using a forward on the point in the second PP unit and more emphasis on faceoff skills (as opposed to simply being able to play centre) on all PK units.
10. Potentials for roster-filling fictional low-level players at the start of the game adjusted to prevent them from being goood enough to inflate the quality of early NHL draft classes, since more real 2016-2020-eligible players have been added to the database as part of a large-scale review of draft prospects for those years; this should keep the draft pool quality at a reasonable level in that time period.
11. KHL draft has been adjusted to allow selection of players from all KHL nationalities; teams are also much more likely to select players of their own nationality (e.g. Latvians for Dynamo Riga, Finns for Jokerit, etc.)
12. Minimum KHL UFA age adjusted to 28.
13. Injuries.txt file updated to give more accurate injury location descriptions.
14. Scoring summaries in the centre of the game view expanded even more to accomodate longer names (previous change wasn't quite enough.)
15. Internal league ratings for WHL/OHL/QMJHL changed slightly so you should see more variation in the star ratings in the game while playing in those leagues (i.e., more 4+ star guys)
16. User team highlighting on the standings section of the GM home page adjusted to make it more visible to colourblind users.
17. When expanding a custom league, far fewer players will be exempt from the expansion draft (had been caused by a lack of league history).
18. Minimum KHL age adjusted to 17.
19. KHL teams should now be able to sign their draftees that are currently playing on under-18/20 teams, as well as players on those teams who have passed through a draft.
20. NHL budgets expanded slightly to
New Additions:
21. New historical dollar translation table implemented; based on new data, this should make salaries and payrolls in the 1970's through early 2000's closer to what they actually were in that era.
22. All league championships will now be noted in player histories for any players on the team's roster.
Bug Fixes:
23. Occasional reversal of divisional seeds in first round of modern NHL playoffs should no longer occur.
24. Fitness levels in the Lines screen should now properly reflect the actual fitness levels, e.g. as shown on the roster screen.
25. Clicking on team names in the standings section of the team home page should no longer open the page of a random NHL team.
26. The displayed numbers for coaching bonus points on the roster training screen will no longer change when filters are used on the roster (was cosmetic-only, the actual number used in training was still correct.)
27. Player happiness in WHL/OHL/QMJHL should no longer revert to lower levels immediately after winning the league championship and moving on to the Memorial Cup.
28. Memorial Cup games should now appear correctly on the Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow section of the interface.
29. Two-way contracts in the KHL should now be displayed correctly in the contract details pane.
30. Impending KHL restricted free agents should no longer become UFA's on contract expiration in some cases.
31. Historical arena names should now be displayed correctly in boxscores and in-game text.
32. Users in online leagues should now be able to buy out players without them being returned to the roster instead of being waived.
33. Players moving from junior leagues to KHL should no longer get continuous $1000 contracts in some circumstances.
34. Players should no longer occasionally be shown at 100% fitness on the roster screen while injured.
35. Sorting by Region in the free agents list of the personnel page should now work correctly.
36. The previous day's scores on the team home page should no longer become unclickable in some circumstances.
37. Closing a contract offer response from a player without choosing an option will no longer occasionally disable the negotiate and decline options.
38. WHL playoff seeding should now work correctly.
39. Tasks panel should no longer display upcoming junior draft messages twice.
40. Clicking on the "All-Star Games" button in League >> History in custom leagues with the NHL/AHL/CHL start will no longer result in a crash.
41. Occasional crash in November of historical games fixed.
42. Possible October crash when managing a team in the Finnish Liiga fixed.
43. Attempting to re-sign a player in historical leagues will no longer occasionally result in a response that claims another team has made a non-existent attempt to sign him as a restricted free agent.
44. Intermittent crash when clicking on Hall of Fame fixed.
45. Fixed an issue that could prevent the AI lineup assistant from making line adjustments at the start of a game.

Here’s your chance to win a copy of this year’s upcoming Franchise Hockey Manager 3!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FranchiseHockeyManager

To help us finalize our plans for the next version of the game, as well as provide meaningful feedback about longer-term content, we're running a survey this week. If you complete all 15 survey questions, you'll qualify for a chance to win 1 of 5 free copies of Franchise Hockey Manager 3 when it's released. This is very important tool for us to guide future development, so please have a look when you have a few spare minutes.

Our sixth update for FHM2, version 2.6.46, has just been released. (This was originally 2.6.45; 2.6.46 adds an automatic fix for existing saves with the two-GM problem that 2.6.45 only fixed in new games.)

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

In addition to these notes, we talk about a few of the changes in more detail at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAS7zqWW7B4

General notes: Unfortunately, a nasty bug slipped through testing in the last update, resulting in the AI occasionally hiring a second GM (and in rare cases, a third) and interfering in roster management. That led to a little initial confusion over exactly what the scope of the bug was, since we got a variety of different reports about the AI doing strange things, caused both by human users getting an unwanted co-GM and having to deal with AI teams with dual/triple GM's. That should all be corrected now. We'll still be doing the planned update post-trading deadline, but we didn't want to wait until then to get the fix out for the phantom-GM problem. The overall number of fixes and changes will be a bit shorter than usual this time, though, since we haven't had the normal amount of time to hit the smaller issues and suggestions.

While getting the bugs sorted out, we were also able to finish something we've been trying to add for a while: the addition of a full NHL-AHL-CHL setup for custom mode - you can now start with the real data for these teams and leagues instead of needing to use a generic setup and editing it yourself. Please be aware that putting the real data into the cut-down format of a fictional league is going to do some strange things, particularly with regard to roster management and player development. If you've wondered why the game runs much faster with only a couple of leagues present vs. the full-blown modern version that has the whole hockey world, this is a pretty good illustration of why: player movement and development is so intertwined between leagues that amputating all of organized hockey except the top two North American leagues and major junior has a big effect on the the surviving leagues. Look at this option as a way to do some quick-playing, fun games, as opposed to the heavy detail of a regular game. If there are game-breaking issues with this new mode, we'll fix them, of course, but we're not going to get bogged down in trying to achieve perfect realism for it, since it's intended, by design, to be a lightweight version of the main modern game.

Data is updated as of Sunday afternoon, so the Toronto-San Jose and Vancouver-Calgary trades aren't in the current database yet, but the Matthias to Colorado one is.

Changes:

1. Made salary assignments during initial drafts of custom leagues (that have salary caps) more forgiving for younger players, roughly corresponding to the NHL rookie maximum rules.
2. Two-way contracts should now be assigned to user-selected players in initial drafts.
3. Scoring summaries in the centre of the game view now have a little extra room to accomodate longer names.
4. Standings screens in leagues with the 3-2-1-0 points format will now be displayed in the format W-W(O/S)-L-L(O/S).
5. Playoff/non-playoff dividing line now shown in the KHL.
6. Contract expiry dates now shown on the staff screen.
7. AI teams (and assistants) will now tend to use two defencemen on the second power play unit more frequently.

New Additions:

8. Added real NHL/AHL/CHL league structures and data as an option in custom mode.
9. Trade deadline email reminder added.

Bug Fixes:

10. Owners will no longer occasionally hire a second GM in addition to the current one, resulting in various issues for the user's team where the "new" GM made undesired roster moves or blocked/reverted moves/trades initiated by the human GM, and similar issues when the human tries to negotiate with an AI-run team that has multiple GM's.
11. Scouts should now have their correct "home" regions highlighted, and inconsistencies between these and the scouting regions corrected - if a scout's home has any overlap at all with a scouting target area, he gets his home advantage for all teams in that area.
12. Scouts without a preferred region will no longer have the Danish Division 1 highlited as a home region.
13. Facegen uniforms should now always update correctly after player trades/moves.
14. Modern NHL playoff pairings should now always seed correctly.
15. Using "Set Initial Rosters by Draft" in historical leagues in years where the WHA is active will no longer result in a crash after setup.
16. Attempting to view some pre-1917 stats will no longer cause a crash.
17. Junior teams in custom leagues should no longer generate too many players from Aland.
18. Human-run NHL teams should no longer get error messages due to roster issues with their ECHL affiliates.
19. During contract negotiations, players should no longer occasionally say they don't want a particular role, then demand that role in their offer.
20. Fixed crash caused by KHL all-star game.
21. Players should not refuse "overseas" offers when already playing on that continent.
22. AI teams will no longer make trades for players with long-term injuries.
23. Rare crash in mid-March of 2016 fixed.
24. Scheduling issue that could prevent VHL playoffs from starting fixed.
25. Using the "Stop Draft" option no longer results in forfeiting of picks.
26. Historical WHA goalie stats no longer showing as NHL stats.
27. Various mismatches with imported stat histories corrected (ongoing process, please let us know when you see these.)
28. Crash when attempting to view player screen from Suomi-Sarja team history corrected.
29. If the trade deadline in a league is changed to be pre-December 31, it'll now correctly apply to the first year, rather than perpetually being pushed forward a year so it never activates.
30. Suomi-Sarja season end awards should now be awarded at the proper time.
31. Transactions screen will no longer describe some traded picks with the wrong round.
32. 1980 playoffs will no longer occasionally fail to start in historical leagues.
33. Scrolling down the season awards list after switching out of the goalie awards view will no longer cause a crash.
34. Certain contract extensions in online leagues that are signed during the regular season should no longer be repeated at the end of the season.

Our fifth update for FHM2, version 2.5.39, has just been released.

To apply the update if you are playing the eSellerate version of the game, simply download the setup file and install it over your current installation. There is no need to uninstall or unlicense your current copy! However, you should quit the game before installing it, of course. If you are on Steam, the update should occur automatically, either as soon as we make the file available or when you launch the game, depending on your Steam settings.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

General notes: We've done some more under-the-hood work in this version, in addition to the usual fixes and additions (but there are plenty of those as well.) Malte has rebuilt our playoff system, which, in the long run, is going to make the handling of things like multileague cups and international play much easier for us to implement. That ate a lot of coding time, but it'll be worth it. There'll be one more major update (i.e., not counting any smaller fixes we need to make) for FHM2 before we move on to full-time work on FHM3. It'll be coming sometime after the NHL trade deadline, so the "Current" version of the rosters will have all the final roster moves. The database in this build is about a week behind the current data - for the NHL, everything including and after the Connauton waiver pickup on the 13th won't be in it yet, but earlier moves (i.e. Jones-Johansen) are there. So John Scott's still a Coyote and if you're running the Oilers, you're not committed to using $4.1 million in cap space for the next three years on Cam Talbot...yet.

Known issue: There seems to be an ongoing, but very intermittent, problem with facegen pictures occasionally not updating the jersey correctly when a player changes teams. We've had it happen to testers, but so far haven't been able to replicate it on our development systems. If you see it happen in your game, we'd very much appreciate a copy of the savegame; the more of those we see the more likely we'll be able to nail down exactly what's causing it.

Changes:

1. Major internal adjustments to the internal handling of playoffs. Most of this won't be immediately apparent in the game, but lays the ground for better handling of playoffs in the future; among other things, this will make multileague playoffs and European Cup-style tournaments much easier to implement in the future.

2. Playoff brackets from past seasons can now be viewed (seasons that occurred in-game only, historical playoffs not shown yet.)

3. Historical playoff stats now totalled separately.

4. The AI should no longer re-sign players it hasn't been playing regularly unless they have significant potential.

5. Later draft updates from the head scout should now update the order of the players based on the most recent scouting information; if that scout has a scouting assignment based on current ability, that will be the sort order used, otherwise it will be based on potential.

6. Scouts assigned to the KHL draft should now target more appropriate countries.

7. When playing as a farm team, players demoted to your team will now be scouted at the highest level when they arrive.

8. Åland Islands should no longer produce so many top-quality players.

9. League names in the league history should now have the correct historical name for the league (e.g. Western Canada Hockey League for the WHL from 1968-1978, SM-Liiga for Liiga prior to 2013, etc.)

New Additions:

10. VHL (Russian second division) added as a playable league.

11. Career stats added for most skaters in the AHL, OHL, ECHL, EPIHL, and Ligue Magnus. Still have a backlog of a few more of these ready to go in.

12. Clicking on the Eliteprospects logo on a player's career stats page will now open his Eliteprospects webpage in your default browser (if the player has his EP ID number in the database - we're still in the process of getting those in, but most current players should have them.)

13. Shortlists can now be cleared with one click.

14. "Impending Free Agents" added as a scouting target.

15. Minimum GP filter added to the Player Stats screen.

16. In multiplayer, commissioners can now remove GM's from the game/GM list.

17. Commissioner can now retire players via a check-box on the player edit screen (click it and save and the player will retire; note that this can't be used to un-retire players as their edit screen will point to a newer player, as the active player ID numbers are re-used when a player retires.)

Bug Fixes:

18. Crash during the all-star game fixed.

19. Team files during multiplayer play should no longer become excessive.

20. When a coach retires, a human GM should now be able to hire a replacement properly.

21. Edits to the player dressed information should no longer fail to save at times.

22. Historical playoff stats no longer mis-labeled with NHL as the league, regardless of league.

23. Players contracts should no longer auto-renew under certain circumstances.

24. Fixed problem where playoffs may not start in a league that has been expanded that year.

25. Stats in award history for the Playoff MVP award will no longer be lost at the end of the season.

26. Waiver claims by the user's team will no longer re-activate if the player is claimed successfully by another team and then waived again at some point in the future.

27. Fixed crash when using the back button to return from the player ratings screen to a game report.

28. MHL (Russian junior) players should now leave the league at the appropriate age.

29. Some PM's will no longer be lost in multiplayer games.

30. Occasional crash during June 30-July 1 transition fixed.

31. Training settings should save reliably in multiplayer.

32. Creating and loading a quickstart should no longer result in one team being renamed with a name from the German league.

33. European teams will no longer hire multiple GM's in some circumstances.

34. Crash while viewing some parts of defunct team histories fixed.

35. Occasional crash just prior to the season start fixed.

36. Some leaders categories will no longer appear unlabeled when using 1920x1080 resolution.

37. Historical players will no longer occasionally start with a coachability rating of 0.

38. F12 button in both the Steam and eSellerate versions should now capture screenshots properly.

39. Unintended declines in player happiness in online leagues fixed.

40. NHL All-Star games should no longer be discontinued at certain expansion levels.

41. Trading ability of user-controlled teams should no longer occasionally fail to re-enable after the playoffs when the schedule is changed due to expansion.

42. Fixed possible crash when WHA becomes active in historical games.

We've just released a hotfix, version 2.4.30, to our previous update. It was needed to fix some game-breaking multiplayer issues regarding the way team files are imported. There are no other changes.

Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

(continued from previous post)
28. Play-by-play should no longer occasionally announce breakaway goals as being scored by the goalie they were scored on.
29. No-movement clauses should no longer prevent a player from being called up from a farm team to a parent team.
30. 1920x1200 arena backgrounds should now work properly.
31. CHL Import Draft should no longer occasionally become stuck when user is participating in it.
32. AI should no longer use 3 forwards when killing a penalty 3-on-5.
33. Signing player contract extensions should now reduce the team's extended contracts budget properly, instead of the free agent funds.
34. Player scouting levels should no longer drop shortly before the draft.
35. During the playoffs, the team home page should no longer show the most recent playoff game as both last home and last away game.
36. When non-coincidental minors are called on opposing teams playing 4-on-4 overtime, the result should no longer be the teams playing 5-on-5 the rest of the overtime.
37. Players should now no longer be excluded from leaders in counting stats (e.g. goalie shutouts) if they've played a low number of games.
38. Penalties during non-overtime 4-on-4 play should now correctly result in a 4-on-3 power play instead of 5-on-4.
39. If a team has a player serving a dual major and then takes two minor penalties, the second minor will now start immediately, instead of waiting for the major to expire.
40. The player screen should now show the correct number of years remaining on recently-renewed contracts.
41. Goalies subsituted into losing games should no longer be credited for the loss unless they meet the normal loss requirements.
42. Attempting to look at the Montreal Wanderers' player index will no longer result in a crash.
43. AI-controlled KHL teams should no longer occasionally sign players contracted to NHL teams.
44. The InD (days lost to injury) column on the team stats page should now be calculated correctly and no longer show very high (60,000+) numbers.
45. Custom zone assignments should now persist when exiting the game and reloading.
46. Relegated teams will now have their farm teams removed to prevent possible conflicts with farm and parent teams winding up in the same league together.
47. Historical games started in 1931 with the "Set Initial Rosters by Draft" and "Generate Rookies at 17" options both turned on should now get a proper draft pool at the start of the game.
48. Crashes caused by a few rare situations discovered in user-submitted files fixed.