Franchise Hockey Manager 2

[Nino33]

I'm afraid it isn't. Once a players CA matches with his PA in EHM he simply cannot develop any further. It's the same in Sports Interactives more famous older brother to EHM, Football Manager.

In contrast, FHM2 comes from the OOTP development stable, where player potentials etc. are less linear. Hence you will see greater variation in possibilities - sure McDavid and Eichel will always develop as studs, but other players (i.e Friedman in the example previously given) can occasionally do so as well.

Could you link me to where officially it says this? or any testing showing this? thanks

I don't recall this being the case when I was involved with FHM at the beginning

And FYI I challenge the anecdotal evidence/opinion regarding EHM too, and IMO many veterans of EHM don't know what they're talking about, so it's not an "FHM vs EHM" thing to me...it's a "I don't believe anything without "proof" kind of thing"

 

[TheWestender]

WinGameStore are currently selling it half price if anyone else is wishing to pick it up.

 

[joshyhockey26]

Anyone know of updates on when the new one is released??Last I heard it was sometime in September

 

[tigermask48]

Hope you went ahead and gave it a shot. Game is a blast to play.

I did. Not too bad a game. The interface is kind of messy, and taking me awhile to figure things out but other wise it's solid. Had a bunch of time to play the past week after the new OOTP 17 patch rendered it almost unplayable due to a bug.

This game has a ton of potential though and I like that some of the stuff (development, FaceGen, etc) is just like OOTP.

 

[Daximus]

I'm afraid it isn't. Once a players CA matches with his PA in EHM he simply cannot develop any further. It's the same in Sports Interactives more famous older brother to EHM, Football Manager.

In contrast, FHM2 comes from the OOTP development stable, where player potentials etc. are less linear. Hence you will see greater variation in possibilities - sure McDavid and Eichel will always develop as studs, but other players (i.e Friedman in the example previously given) can occasionally do so as well.

Even so I've actually had a save where McDavid busted after being injured many times early on in his career and another where Eichel becomes a perennial Ross winner and went on to be a top 10 player all time.

As far as player development goes, FHM has it nailed. The outcome is different every time and if you don't like how someone is developing you can step in and make changes whenever you want. They got that from OOTP which is light years ahead of both FHM and EHM in terms of gameplay and player development engines.

 

[brentdog]

Could you link me to where officially it says this? or any testing showing this? thanks

I don't recall this being the case when I was involved with FHM at the beginning

And FYI I challenge the anecdotal evidence/opinion regarding EHM too, and IMO many veterans of EHM don't know what they're talking about, so it's not an "FHM vs EHM" thing to me...it's a "I don't believe anything without "proof" kind of thing"

Ok, so here's Kevin Roy in our multi-player sim league:

He has essentially far outstripped his in-game potential to become a 4.5* superstar along the lines of Pat Kane. His Potential Offensive rating of 735 and defensive rating of 645 don't indicate that he should be achieving attribute ratings anything like this. Yet he went on a crazy development curve and the end result is as shown.

This is repeated across our league with 4 or 5 players - Mark Friedman, Taylor Cammarata, Connor Hurley - who have all gone on to outstrip their potential and become legitimate superstars across the course of 3 seasons.

In EHM this simply wouldn't happen. If a player is a potential 3rd liner with, say, 120 Potential Ability points, then he will never be able to progress beyond this once his current ability matches his potential, i.e 120/120. EHM players cannot become more than they were destined to be from the moment they were entered into the game. This is what I mean by the development being 'hard coded' in.

As shown above, this isn't the case with FHM2, where the development is much more fluid and can result in some surprising guys becoming legit superstars.

 

[Nino33]

The outcome is different every time

That's the definition of random, which is not a good thing

and if you don't like how someone is developing you can step in and make changes whenever you want

same as you can with EHM (but personally I'm with those that call this cheating and think it should not be done)

Ok, so here's Kevin Roy in our multi-player sim league

Thanks for replying brentdog, I appreciate you making the effort, but for me one guy is not "official" nor is it testing (could be just a bug/bad development)




brentdog you noted "FHM2 comes from the OOTP development stable" and Daximus noted "They got that from OOTP which is light years ahead" - not everyone agrees that OOTPD is as great as you two; for example, while OOTP posts "we're #1" with the current version of their game http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boa...ons/265926-critics-have-spoken-we-re-1-a.html when you actually look at the metacritic link while it is true they are tied for #1 out of 193 based on 8 reviewer reviews, among users they're tied for #183 out of 193 based on 173 user reviews! I'm really stunned/surprised they'd even reference it (it's embarrassingly bad)




I'm not into the PR approach, and IMO you two are essentially advertisers (connected to the game in an official capacity right?); the Steam rating for Franchise Hockey Manager 2 is mixed even though the developers were soliciting user ratings right from the first day http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boa...ions/258925-steam-users-please-rate-game.html & many of the positive FHM2 reviews have very few hours of FHM2 play (i.e. company fanboys)

When FHM was first talked about I did some research on OOTPD and they're known for such behaviour (advertising focus/developers soliciting ratings/fanboys giving a 10 regardless of issues/negative attacking boards).....everybody has their own likes/dislikes, and for me these are significant dislikes (and something I've never seen with EHM)

As I've tried to explain to FHM supporters, if the game's good it'll stand on it's own and doesn't need the hype/PR - but I see now years later that the hype/PR approach is the company style.....for myself I'll go with user reports/ratings & amount of people playing and ignore the hype/PR



PLEASE Please please don't feel a need to convince me of anything, you're not going to (I noted above what will, and it won't be supporters hyping the game.....due to the past with FHM and the OOTPD history "that ship has sailed" - the game itself is all I care about, the efforts to promote/explain have only repeatedly made things worse)

 

[Nino33]

In EHM this simply wouldn't happen. If a player is a potential 3rd liner with, say, 120 Potential Ability points, then he will never be able to progress beyond this once his current ability matches his potential, i.e 120/120. EHM players cannot become more than they were destined to be from the moment they were entered into the game. This is what I mean by the development being 'hard coded' in.

By the way, this might be true for some Attributes but IIRC it's not true for all (I'm pretty sure previous testing I did last summer had shown some Attributes can still grow after CA/PA match); I'm currently compiling some more testing now (looking at all Attributes yearly for over 300 players over 12 years with the data compiled in spreadsheets), so we'll see if my memory is correct/if it's still occurring.

Honestly, many of the older so called EHM experts were often mistaken in their views (and some still profess things that are wrong!); I strongly believe you simply can't accept that all "commonly held views" on EHM07 and the new EHM are correct (part of the reason this summer that I've made all my testing results public is to address this)



Bottom line is I don't care that a handful of guys who shouldn't be stars/superstars can be, and the fact that I deal almost exclusively with retro rosters means I don't want that to actually happen

Also, looking at just "one small thing in isolation" as proof of anything good doesn't work for me (like the claim that the game engine/scoring is so accurate...but since the save % isn't the scoring being accurate isn't actually accurate) - if the development on the many hundreds of players that are good/top players isn't good then your example becomes just another example of overall poor development IMO

FHM dug itself a deep hole, and the fact that FHM2 was better than FHM is meaningless to me; I don't compare FHM and EHM, I compare FHM to the claims FHM fans/developers make about FHM (and so far the results have not been good, which is why I tried repeatedly to recommend don't hype the game, don't compare it to EHM, just let it stand on it's own.....if it's actually any good it'll be fine IMO, but based on years of past history raising expectations is simply a bad idea IMO)


You guys can go ahead and respond if you want, but I'm gonna try to let this go now...

 

[brentdog]

You guys can go ahead and respond if you want, but I'm gonna try to let this go now...

Ah, so the evidence from our multi-player league is inadmissable as it only comes from one source, yet your 'testing' from last summer is presumably to be taken as gospel truth?

In any respect, I'd suggest you look into how attributes etc. work in Football Manager, which as I said previously, is the stable from which EHM is born. Every attribute has a certain point rating allocated to it depending on how relevant it is to the player, which counts towards the overall CA score, i.e pace is important to a striker so a point in the pace attribute costs 4 points of current ability for him, but only 2 for a central defender. I'd be very surprised if EHM works any differently.

To my mind the beauty of sport, and sport management games, should be that some players who are supposed to be studs can be busts, and those who were never thought to be anything great in their youth can go on to become world beaters. FHM in my opinion reflects this much better than EHM.

And by the way, if you want retro guys to progress as they did historically rather than have any variance, FHM has a facility for that. You just select that option.

 

[Nino33]

Ah, so the evidence from our multi-player league is inadmissable as it only comes from one source, yet your 'testing' from last summer is presumably to be taken as gospel truth?

No, never said anything like that

I'd be very surprised if EHM works any differently

It works differently than you're describing (doesn't make it better/worse, it's just not what you're saying)

I'm not claiming to "know" how FM works or how FHM works now, I find it time consuming enough testing/understanding EHM (I don't know how people can find the time and get the needed nonpublic knowledge to truly know so much about the detailed inner working of different games.....I don't proclaim to know everything about EHM and I think I've done as much testing and know as much or more than any member of the general public; I'm certainly not proclaiming to know how FM and/or FHM work at anywhere near the same level I know EHM)

those who were never thought to be anything great in their youth can go on to become world beaters. FHM in my opinion reflects this much better than EHM

I'm glad you like it/are happy, I don't want that in a game I play using real players, I call it unrealistic; I could do that in EHM using the -15 PA.....it may or may not be as good as the FHM way, but since I don't want that I wouldn't do it (people are allowed to like/want different things)

And by the way, if you want retro guys to progress as they did historically rather than have any variance, FHM has a facility for that

I know, but I want a hockey "world" and have no interest in "NHL/WHA only" and fake Staff (the whole reason I started editing EHM is I loaded up the 1979 database and immediately found Coach Dave Semenko coaching Player Dave Semenko, and it ruined the immersion for me.....and I've been editing ever since! HaHa)




I've posted more about problems/issues in EHM than anyone (just this summer I've publicly posted pages and pages and pages of test results noting fact based/detailed problems/issues in EHM; despite how some FHM supporters present me, I'm no EHM "fanboy" nor am I a promoter/advertisement for EHM)

I've bought every version of FHM at full price. I also bought OOTP twice to support the company/support FHM development (though I've never played OOTP/have no interest in baseball). I stopped posting at the FHM Boards to avoid the resulting stress for all involved; I'm not sure what more I could do to satisfy people like you...