EHM status updates from Riz

[nino33]

Riz just posted a pretty good summary of the status of EHM on the hfboards http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showp ... tcount=380

Someone had made a post saying "I just checked Steam spy and sales for EHM are around 110.000. FHM 2 is around 10.000. Yet, FHM will have new release and EHM won't. Dont understand, odd... "

And Riz replied:

EHM numbers on SteamSpy were around 30-40k before the HumbleBundle deal where a lot of people then got it basically as a freebie as a part of a package of games. So those numbers can be a bit misleading.

And yes, the plans was always to get EHM back on Steam to allow us to work on it even as a side-project after the initial release with future versions something that we can look into depending on how it all goes etc.

As for the lack of updates lately, I've been quite busy with the FM release cycle this year so not a lot of time to put into EHM in the office hours. I'd like to do more EHM stuff "off-the-clock" but having our first-born daughter join the family this year has taken the front seat on the allocation of my spare time

And like it was posted above in the thread, there is a very good 3rd party editor in the works on TBL and I'm also working on a built-in editor for EHM itself and that work has been ongoing since before we went into Early Access originally. It's just a complex project that takes time, since all the playable leagues can nowadays be setup via the database.

[archibalduk]

I've moved this to the Site News as I think this is a useful update for all to see.

[nino33]

Congrats on the birth of your daughter Riz! My two daughters are my pride and joy

Glad to hear progress continues on EHM development, even if it is slow progress

And as an editor/creator of databases, the editors excite me a great deal

[batdad]

Congrats to Riz on his first born daughter! Nothing like kids. Best thing that ever happened in my life!

[nino33]

On the SI EHM Boards Riz posted about six hours ago regarding the upcoming EHM update, saying...


As posted above, we have had a small update planned to allow custom databases to use 2016 start dates. This has been in testing for a while already but unfortunately due to the busy FM schedule around this time of year, we didn't know when we would have a chance to get it out. But we are going to release it as soon as we can, shouldn't be too long now. Thank you for your patience.

The long term roadmap for the current version of EHM is heavily focused on the built-in editor work, which I've been doing on the side of the gameplay enhancements since we went into Early Access. And there are other gameplay tweaks and improvements being worked on for future updates as well.


And in another thread he posted (half an hour ago) saying...

As noted in a few other threads, there is a small update coming shortly for EHM to allow custom databases to use a 2016 start date. The update will also feature some gameplay improvements and bug fixes.

For a whole new 2016-17 ruleset update, it'll be a bit longer before we can include that in an update as I've simply not had the time to work on that in the past few months. Most of the time I've managed to find for EHM has been spent on the built-in editor which is coming along nicely but is still some ways from being completed.

[nino33]

I hadn't been on the EHM thread at HFBoards in about a month, and went on there tonight and noticed some "recent" posts by Riz that I thought I'd share for those here at TBL who never go to the EHM thread at HFBoards


November 17th
Nithoniniel - Having a lot of trouble lately with a certain thing. Teams will start to shop players, and sometimes when they do they seem to set the player as not needed (verified with Assistant). After they do this, the guy is a priority to get waived. I mean, it doesn't matter how good he is or how much trade value he has, he'll get waived.
I'm going on my third game started up in a short time now, and I'm getting a LOT of weird waives due to this. Cory Schneider for example. I mean, it's odd enough that the team transfer lists a guy like that.
Riz - That sounds most likely an issue with the team being over the cap and needing to move a contract before the off-season cap changes into the normal season cap. That typically starts with the team trying to shop a player around the league but if they do not get a trade sorted, they will end up waiving the player to reduce the cap hit by burying at least part of the contract.

November 17th
fredligh - Any more information on this; "- Adjustments to player current ability progression"? Does the strength attribute correlate at all to weight increase of prospects at this point?
Riz - More of a general adjustment on the younger player ability development than attribute specific.

November 25th
Riz - In case you haven't picked it up yet, EHM is 75% off in the Steam Autumn Sale. So only 4.99e currently.
Also, if you have bought the game and would like to show your support, you can nominate games in Steam for the Steam Awards. The "Just 5 More Minutes" category sounds plausible for EHM based on the number of hours put in by some users, so I would greatly appreciate any nominations
Work is continuing on a 2016-17 ruleset and other gameplay tweaks and improvements as well as the editor. So there are more updates in the pipeline for the current game.

November 25th
Holden Caulfield - I nominated it for classic game i will always love. Mostly because of the freeware back in the day
Riz - That was the other category I was thinking myself as well
I've kept coming back to EHM since the early 90's now

December 3rd
Foppa - I'm telling you guys - between the official editor Riz is working on and the league structure stuff archi is close to unlocking, I'm really stoked with the potential in this game for years to come. I really think the chassis of this game is still super solid.
Riz - The official built-in editor will also allow editing playable leagues as well as adding new ones, but as has been stated before it is still very much a work in progress, just like Archi's editor. But we'll get there one day, so things can be a lot more customisable in the future.
Something like the NCAA might not be fully realistic to make playable as it has a lot of gameplay elements that aren't really modelled in the game engine itself, but most of the other professional, semipro and amateur/junior leagues can be made playable with fairly realistic rules. Also completely fictional leagues can be created with various different league structures.
The 1.3 update already allows you to set a 2016 start date in the import_config.cfg (although you'll still need to use the 2015 ruleset for the league structures) and like stated before, I'm working on adding a 2016 ruleset to the importer as well (4 leagues already done and updated) which will be included in the 1.4 update. Naturally there will be some gameplay tweaks etc again in the next update, plus an updated 2d engine as I've had some time lately to work on stuff like improving the goalie AI for playing the puck, clearances and some coaching AI.

December 8th
kulenova seka - Why no QMJHL standings by divisions, only league overall ?
Riz - It's because the way the league is constructed to facilitate the playoff seedings, which are based on the overall standings and not divisional standings.
There will be a new view in the next update to show "Divisional Standings" that will list all the divisional tables in the same screen and it will be a default view for this league.

December 9th
Aladyyn - Yup, jersey retirements seem to be properly in and that's awesome
Riz - Yep, apparently it was broken at some point during the pre-Early Access development but managed to track it down after a report on our forums with a helpful saved game so got it fixed in the last update.

December 12th
hockey17jp - What are the requirements to get a retired jersey? Does a player have to play the entire career with only one team? Or can it be like 2-3 years with one team and then like 15-16 great years with another?
Like in my game Martin St. Louis played like 1 1/2 seasons with Calgary before I acquired him and he's put together a Hall of Fame career with my team for the last 14 seasons. Will the game recognize that and retire his number?
Riz - He needs to retire when still at your club but 9-10 seasons are enough to be a candidate. Then it is down to his career stats, some other factors like number of awards won and of course some randomness.

December 15th
Riz - In reference to the new editor stuff.... like I said originally, even though the basic game is still much like the 2007 version, under the hood the database is all new and this is now tapping into all that.
Obviously there are still some issues with adding new playable leagues with an editor as not everything has been tested and not everything probably works perfectly right off the bat. But the good thing is that EHM is being actively developed so I can help out with the editing community by fixing things they may break inside the game with their creations etc.
I've already seen a few test DBs with for example the French league as playable and the VHL (Russian 2nd league), so there is a lot of potential here to add new playable leagues and improve the game further.

December 18th
Foppa - I'm going to try my hand at adding the IIHF U18 as a playable/visible tournament. It is in the database but is not able to be viewed as far as I can tell (no league structure setup). I figure this could be an easy custom league to start learning with as the U20 WJC should provide a pretty like-for-like template.
Archi - can you see any reason any reason this wouldn't work if done properly?
Riz - The game does not feature U18 teams and the game-side database system does not support adding them, so that is a solid no for the current version. The game only supports senior and U20*national teams for now.

December 22nd
clefty - This new thing of teams turning down trades because a player "has not seen much action lately" is pretty silly.
Smirnov2Chistov - But that's as realistic as it gets.
NYR1967 - Unless there's a backup goalie that's part of the trade - then it's a little annoying.
Riz - Categorically that reason is never set for a goalie when evaluating players in a trade.
So if you have a trade offer where it gives this reason and the player it is for is a goalie, could you upload the save on our SI ftp and log it on our forums ? Thanks.
clefty - This new thing of teams turning down trades because a player "has not seen much action lately" is pretty silly.
VC - Whenever I see that in negotiations, I put that player in to showcase him after I make the offer. Hasn't really ever stopped a trade after putting him in for a game or two.

[CJ]

Thanks!

[KevT90]

Good stuff !

[nino33]

An interesting post from Riz on the SI EHM Boards https://community.sigames.com/topic/394 ... expansion/ I thought I'd share here...


Riz was asked about the upcoming NHL expansion IRL (Las Vegas) and whether it will be included ingame, and he responded "No, the next update will include a 2016 ruleset but no future expansions beyond that. There is no support for dynamic league changes between seasons in the game yet"

And then, after a "That's unfortunate, but thanks for the speedy response!" he responded further...

"There are other leagues where we already know there will be changes for the 2017-18 season (like Mestis going back to 12 teams) but at the moment we cannot have rulesets in the database that change from year to year.

It is something that can be done in the future however and I will look to add something like that some day, but it will have to wait for a whole new version of the game, not just an update. It would also allow historical leagues to include future expansions etc in their databases, so moving through the historical years would be even more realistic. Obviously it would also require adding other new features such as expansion drafts etc to support league expansions properly within the game.

Edit: And obviously the built-in editor which is being worked on (and which will be added to the current version of the game in the 1.5 update hopefully) will allow you to make changes to the playable leagues in your databases, so that you can have a custom databases starting in 2017 with the expanded league format after the expansion has gone through in real life. The 3rd party editor in the works at TBL already allows people to test adding new playable leagues and modifying existing ones and there is a DB already there that has done such an expansion so it is all doable for a new starting DB."


I liked seeing reference to the built-in editor (hopefully in 1.5), a whole new version of the game (some day) and historical databases!

[marksbros6]

Possible new game in the future? Hinting at EHM2 maybe?

[Alessandro]

I think he means that, but considering how slowly (before Nino jumps on me I am just meaning it for the fact, not accusing or moaning) the development has been, I wouldn't my breath for that, as he already "announced" an 1.4 and 1.5 updated, and we're not yet at 1.4.

[marksbros6]

Wasn't expecting a new game anytime soon but good to know Riz is thinking about it!

[nino33]

I think he means that, but considering how slowly (before Nino jumps on me I am just meaning it for the fact, not accusing or moaning) the development has been, I wouldn't my breath for that, as he already "announced" an 1.4 and 1.5 updated, and we're not yet at 1.4.

I agree that things occur slowly, and find myself often pointing that out too, usually not to focus on it's going slowly but to respond to those that think the slow going is unequivocally a negative (where I think it's more just "a fact of life" that given Riz's limited time/FM priority things occur slowly)

But while I wouldn't "hold my breath" either HaHa I do think it's a very good sign that Riz is talking about a possible EHM2! even if it is "some day"

One of the things I really like about EHM/Riz is development is not hype/PR based and does seem to be planned out long term, with reasonable/realistic expectations expressed (and those plans seem to me to be "simple and solid" and so don't change every 6-12 months...like the built-in editor, which has been part of the development process since the beginning)

[Filip Croatia]

I think he means that, but considering how slowly (before Nino jumps on me I am just meaning it for the fact, not accusing or moaning) the development has been, I wouldn't my breath for that, as he already "announced" an 1.4 and 1.5 updated, and we're not yet at 1.4.

I agree that things occur slowly, and find myself often pointing that out too, usually not to focus on it's going slowly but to respond to those that think the slow going is unequivocally a negative (where I think it's more just "a fact of life" that given Riz's limited time/FM priority things occur slowly)

But while I wouldn't "hold my breath" either HaHa I do think it's a very good sign that Riz is talking about a possible EHM2! even if it is "some day"

One of the things I really like about EHM/Riz is development is not hype/PR based and does seem to be planned out long term, with reasonable/realistic expectations expressed (and those plans seem to me to be "simple and solid" and so don't change every 6-12 months...like the built-in editor, which has been part of the development process since the beginning)

I am sure there will be EHM 2 "some day" because now EHM has rival game on market, which thinks seriously with their NHL license, having said that I predict EHM 2 in Q2 of 2018.

[Alessandro]

I think he means that, but considering how slowly (before Nino jumps on me I am just meaning it for the fact, not accusing or moaning) the development has been, I wouldn't my breath for that, as he already "announced" an 1.4 and 1.5 updated, and we're not yet at 1.4.

I agree that things occur slowly, and find myself often pointing that out too, usually not to focus on it's going slowly but to respond to those that think the slow going is unequivocally a negative (where I think it's more just "a fact of life" that given Riz's limited time/FM priority things occur slowly)

But while I wouldn't "hold my breath" either HaHa I do think it's a very good sign that Riz is talking about a possible EHM2! even if it is "some day"

One of the things I really like about EHM/Riz is development is not hype/PR based and does seem to be planned out long term, with reasonable/realistic expectations expressed (and those plans seem to me to be "simple and solid" and so don't change every 6-12 months...like the built-in editor, which has been part of the development process since the beginning)

Absolutely agreed

[nino33]

Another very interesting/encouraging post from Riz IMO! https://community.sigames.com/topic/346 ... d/?page=10

He was asked "OHL announced another draft for U18 kind of like their normal draft except this one is Major midget players.. any chance this gets added into this years verison or is it something that has to wait until next year?"

And he replied today "No changes for the draft systems are planned for this version at this point anymore. The long term aim is to make all drafts configurable and database driven in the next full version."


I LOVE seeing him use the phrase "in the next full version" - I have no "insider information" about this and what it means (I wish I did! HaHa), but I do see it as very encouraging that the potential for another version of EHM is mentioned

[Filip Croatia]

I checked steam spy today and it says around 150k owners of EHM 1

[nino33]

FYI

Riz posted today on HF Boards, saying...

If you haven't got it already, EHM is currently 75% off in the Steam Summer Sale so you can get it for about 5 euros again.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/30...ockey_Manager/
Work on the 1.5 update has been ongoing again this week, mainly working on the editor again but also working on some gameplay tweaks.

In the last five months Riz has posted five other EHM related posts/comments/explanations on HFBoards; for those who may not have seen them, they are...




Riz's last post before today was May 12th, were he responded to the question "AI is hardcoded in the game correct?"
Yes, the AI roster management is done in the code, not much can be done about that by editing the database alone. A lot of the issues are likely down to the new DBs adding in leagues that were never originally planned to be playable, so the roster management AI for those leagues can be running on the bare minimum requirements. Which is not optimal for a playable league obviously.



On May 8th Riz responded to the issue of "the AI not filling out their rosters in the lower leagues"
Yes, well aware of the issue. My time to develop EHM is limited and I've been focusing the little time I have had mainly on the editor, so I've got a big list of gameplay things I want to look at for 1.5 update. As before, this update is "ready when done" since there is a lot to do and test before it can be released.



On March 1st Riz replied to the comment/request asking that the game "Keep players viewable after retirement. At least their "history" section in their player profiles so we can see their career stats. + Have the game create an "almanac" type of section for historical team stat tracking. We can search a team, a year, and have the info populate similar to what team stat leaders look like on hockeydb for example"
A historical archive of player stats is certainly doable but it would be a big task to implement it. And it would have to be optional and league-based only, so you could tick it on for the wanted league(s) as storing this much information will bloat the saved games quite quickly. And it would likely need to be limited to just the core player stats (the same that can be entered historically in the DB) instead of storing all the detailed stats (like hits, takeaways, faceoffs, fights etc.) that we currently track for each season for each player in the game.

But yeah, an interesting idea and I will log it for my wishlist for the future.



Back in February, during a discussion regarding house rules/exploits, a user said "I think what Riz should strive for is to make a game that forces the player to use any ressource at his disposal to remain competitive, because that's the way it is in real life" and Riz relied...
Yes, that is the aim believe me. However coding the AI managers to be as intelligent as your average human armchair GMs takes a lot of time and finetuning.

With every new feature added to the game, there is typically an AI element that needs to be added to make sure the AI can do similar evaluations the human does. And finetuning these can be tricky at times, especially when it comes to player evaluations for offering new contracts and the status of the player within the team depth chart. Typically the human managers look at the actual player production a LOT more than the AI managers, who rely more on analysis of the actual player ability. And when players sometime outperform their abilities and have a good year statistically (for example playing on a line with better players), it looks weird when the AI does not appreciate that production by the pure numbers and does not re-sign someone who had a good season. This is an area that I'd like to improve in the future but like I said, these things take time to improve as a lot of analysis and testing is needed.

As was noted above, if you find such cases with RFA's for example in the game, the best bet to get my attention is to post on the SI bugs forum and upload a saved game from around a week before the player goes RFA and the team hasn't re-signed him. I'm working on FM mainly but have some time for EHM on the side, so it may take some time occasionally for me to reply to posts on the bugs forum but a post + save makes it much more likely for an issue to be analysed, identified and resolved.

Currently most of my EHM time is going towards the built-in editor work, so I'm not checking the bugs forum as frequently as when working on the gameplay issues. But I'll do another purge there at some point again when I've reached the next milestone in the editor work. The 1.5 update will include gameplay improvements as well, just like the previous updates, so any issues logged on the official bugs forum with saves uploaded on our FTP will help improve the gameplay further.



In late January in regards to a comment questioning whether the talent level maintains itself over long term play (using Reputation as the barometer, and noting only two players with a Star Repuation in 2063) Riz replied...
"Star" reputation only refers to their actual reputation, not their talent level. The game keeps a good balance of both CA and PA thru longer soaks but reputations are prone to vary a lot more since it depends on what teams players play for and how those teams are doing in the leagues.

[wildcat62]

Just to clarify - when he's talking about the editor is it the same one that Archi is working on or is it an official one?

[Alessandro]

He is working at his own editor too

[nino33]

Some more comments from Riz today (on HFBoards)...



When asked "how are you planning on combat the fact that there's now 31 teams in the NHL? Just wondering since if i can remember, you couldn't really change the numbers of teams in the league before?" Riz replied...
The main point of the new EHM that we released on Steam was to make all the leagues data driven and configurable in the database. So you can nowadays change the number of teams in a league in the database as long as you update the needed schedules etc.

Someone has already made a 31 team league on TBL for example, see here:
http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums...221257#p221257

The great people over at TBL have already added a lot of custom leagues to their databases and made all new leagues and nations playable.

There is an editor available on TBL that allows you to customize leagues and I'm working on the 1.5 update for EHM that will include a built-in database editor in the game itself as well, that will allow editing of leagues and even adding new ones in.

Edit: Oh, and as you see from the posts quoted above, Foppa is the one who made the earlier 31 team DB and is working on an updated one as well



In response to a posters comment about the ingame Editor Riz is working on, Riz said...
It will offer the same functionality as the TBL editor, so you can edit your databases before starting new games with them. Obviously it won't be possible to edit ongoing saved games with the built-in editor.

Progress is going well with 1.5 but at the moment I cannot set any kind of release date yet as there is still much to test with the db editor and add a few things to be editable.

[nino33]

FYI - In answering a question on HFBoards today Riz commented on expansion/relocation in EHM, saying "Expansion/relocation as a built-in part of the game is something I am considering for the long term future of the game, but not for the upcoming updates to this current edition of the game." http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showp ... tcount=511

[BKarchitect]

The fact that Riz even mentions he's considering ideas for the long-term/new version is pretty exciting. I know that's a long, long ways from happening but for Riz to keep things going with I'm assuming little developer support as a labor of love is just so awesome.

[nino33]

FYI - some tweets from Riz from recent months regarding EHM development that I thought were worth reposting...

• JAN 25 - Finally finished the player reputation adjustment and AI cap management tweaks on #EHM tonight. Took a few nights of soak test and tweaks to get it where I was satisfied with it. A few more smaller tweaks to do still in this area.
• JAN 24 - The last few evenings I've been working on how winning awards affects player reputation and improving the AI cap management when re-signing players. Coming along nicely. #EHM
• DEC 22 - The built-in editor for #EHM continues to evolve. Milestone reached today as I tested changing a continental comp from last year's format to the new format only using the editor and it ran nicely on the first attempt. Now for a bit of Xmas coding break #gamedev
• DEC 13 - Another productive morning of #EHM dev, adding in more editable fields for clubs in preparation for better customization of continental comps #gamedev
• NOV 16 - Some quality time with #EHM development today for a change after a long #FM18 dev cycle. More work on the built-in editor.

I liked seeing the reference to improved player reputation functionality & AI cap management

[philou21]

Cap management is indeed a good news! That's the only thing so far that is really annoying me with the game.