dont worry

i posted you bug at si forum and the guys making unfake

is coming out with another new version soon.

kidhander1983 said

"i've found what the bug is and i think i can fix it"
"I've just fixed it"


the new verison will include.

"NEW VERSION OF THE UNFAKING UPDATE IS COMING SOON!!

Fixes since unfaking v1.0 include...

- Vancouver NCAA prospects
- Big Swiss Players
- New AHL Teams for that are entering the league in the 05-06 season, and new Division Alignment
- New Teams in the ECHL
- NHL Affiliations Updated to July 1st/05
- Minor Unfaking
- Some 04/05 Transfers

international histories, will it be corrected"

I saw that....meant to post at SI last night after I did here, but got sidetracked. Thanks for covering for me. :)

Good news.

Meh, I'm no longer convinced that updating the data in my game with unofficial stuff is a good idea. There are enough other things to worry about.

It's really starting to irk me that another patch hasn't been released yet. Known crashes need to be fixed as soon as possible. What about guys that don't keep up with the bugs list and don't know that you can't check the transactions history of staff that have been fired? It's beginning to seem like SI has an agenda. Something along the lines of, "we're gonna release one big patch and then focus all the rest of our time on the NA update/patch." Just thinking out loud.

Well, yeah. If there are no serious problems with this patch, wouldn't it make sense for the next one to be the North American release? We're only talking three months or so to get some fairly major changes into the game, so work has to start on it sometime. Having more patches between now and then would eat up badly-needed time.

As for the next patch, it's still being tested. The cutoff for data change requests was yesterday, so that should give you some idea that it's close. But there are still some things that aren't quite right.

I'm saying that fixing crashes 4-5 weeks after they've been reported seems a bit too long. I hit one of them the other day and then noticed that it was reported weeks ago.

Why not release a patch in between? I do weekly rolling saves, but I still don't like to lose work do to crashes that have been reported and fixed. Is it a matter of pride? Maybe it's a matter of convenience - they don't have to give trymedia a new exe.

but isn't it nice that we're at least getting patches?? Hell, half the games on the market these days you're lucky if you get ONE patch. Look at Rome:Total War for example, and how long it's taken them to just get the AI right. You can always put the game on the shelf for a little while till it's all patched up...

Not even worth responding to that.

Let's say I'm in the late rounds and I'm starting to look at unranked players. Suppose I have

Billy Adams
Jack Crawford
Ed Hill
John Smith
Jason Zachery

on my shortlist, but don't know who to pick. To compare these players, I have to scroll through the mass of available players until I get to them, click on each of them, and then use the 'compare players' feature. As I posted on SI, it's workable but it's so much easier if I can just quickly click on each of them in the shortlist.

Well, first they have to *find* the source of the crashes. If they're not easily reproduceable, that can take days of hunting. Once the fix is made, it needs to be tested. If a patch comes out with a crash fix that badly breaks some other aspect of the game, that's no good. So there's a few more days of testing - and SI can test for the basic stuff, but to really give it a thorough working-over they need outside testers.

And no matter how many new ones they add, it always seems to come down to the same old group of 8-10 dependable testers finding the time to dig into the guts of the game to make sure everything's working right. Then, if we find serious problems, things have to start over again. I don't know how much extra time is necessary to deal with the Trymedia aspect, but I'm pretty sure it's trivial compared to the coding and testing time.

Yeah, they could rush an untested patch out the door every Friday. But how happy would you be if a beta patch corrupted your 10-year save game, or started producing ridiculous statistics? And even if those things didn't happen, there'd be a different group of people saying that the game must be incredibly buggy, because X number of patches had to be released for it.

A 4-5 week wait for a patch is hardly unreasonable. Yeah, more is expected of SI than a never-patch company like EA. But I've seen plenty of respected game developers spend a lot more time between patches.

Well, you don't want Black Jack Crawford, the man's been dead for 32 years. ;)

OK, I see what you mean here. Maybe a filter can be added for shortlisted players, so you can set it so only those are displayed.

I've only played two seasons but it seems way too easy to make money. As the Flames, I've always stayed under budget and this apparently brought in huge amounts of cash. In two years the player budget has gone from $35 million to $46 million to $59 million.

In reality, following the team as I do, it's likely a large portion of the $20-$30 million made each year would have been used to clear down the remaining debt. Some would be profit and any left over *may* have seen the player budget increase by one or two million.

Essentially the point is that budget increases are too drastic from year to year and should happen gradually.

I'm not complaining though :

Samsonov - Langkow - Iginla
Bell - Talbot - Heatley
Moreau - Yelle - Nilson
Mair - Fisher - Michalek
Dingman - Murray

Leopold - Regehr
McKee - Kubina
Phaneuf - Lydman
Doig - Grandpierre

Kiprusoff
Brathwaite

Yeah, I've noticed that, too. And for some reason, the Flames in particular have an easy time getting their budget to go up. Not much point in Riz changing any of that now, though, with the cap coming.

Ok so I haven't been following this latest release very closely. With the cap coming up and all the changes (both in the NHL and in the minors) will there be a patch released whenever the new CBA is signed?

Dola- I thought I read somewhere that the game is cheaper if you bought last year's version. Is that correct?

No.

Our current plan is to finish the second patch in the very near future and release it after it has been through the beta test team. After that, we will be setting our sights into updating our databases and code to reflect the new league structures, rules and rosters for the upcoming 2005/06 season. The North American release of NHL EHM 2005 is planned on being based on this updated code, which will then be made available as a regular downloadable update for people who already have the European boxed version or the Digital Download version. Hope this helps.

Can't really complain about that!

i'm starting to get frustrated by my total inability to score, and at the same time, the way my nuetral-zone trap is giving up 3+ goals a game routinely. Given I'm not exactly trying to win this season, but when I started off with a top line of Carter-Zubris-V. Bure-McGillis-Numinen in front of Kolzig, there's no way in my mind with any tactic that I should be loosing by 3-4 goals every game, and struggling to score ANY goals. What's going on?? I havn't really "messed" with tactics too much, I tend to stick to the defaults, but even when I did try to heavily modify a tactic it didn't seem to help. What gives???

dola

48 games into the season...80 GF and 163 against. Now I havn't been using the same tactic the whole season, I've been ping-ponging through them every couple games trying to find one that will work. But still...WTF am I doing wrong? I love this game, but it's really starting to get frustrating!

That's likely part of the problem. It takes the team time to adjust to a major change in tactics. Pick something similar to what other teams seem to be having success with, and then make minor adjustments to fit the strengths of your team.

i feel like i started off the season (first 20 games or so) with the same tactic, which was a straight neutral zone trap, but it wasn't trapping at all, so i backed away from it and then ping-ponged.

actually, when i let the computer handle the lines and tactics I've picked up like 3 more wins, and i now have like 11 wins total in the season. Hey, at least I win the Crosby-sweepstakes (which was the idea actually once i knew i couldn't compete).

How long does it usually take to sim a season?

couple hours i'd say. and that's doing it not constantly but like...with 50% attention. Although I have to say, I think I spend less time in-season with EHM then I do with FM. Maybe that's part of my problem...

DaddyTorgo

Practice is key too.

if you let head coach handle practice, they wont do everything on the practice screen.

so its best you do your own.

be sure to have coaches for practice cover only 3 areas each only to get the maximum of your players.

If the two sides agree on a new CBA soon, then the new CBA (salary cap and all) will be coded in for the NA release?

That's the plan, assuming the deal gets signed and ratified soon, and Riz's bomb-avoiding luck continues to hold out. ;)

One question I have is when I turn tactics off to give the reigns to the head coach, do any of the team, line or individual orders remain in effect?

For instance, if I set everyone to fight, will the coach turn it off?

Unless you've got the "use current tactics" option selected, yeah, he'll do his own thing.

Happens to me in this version, happened to me in the last one. Even if I had amazing talent (Allison - Palffy - Bertuzzi /// Naslund - Crosby - Deadmarsh) I only made the playoffs once in 7 years.

In this one, I started 0-5-1, going down early each game. I didn't do many tactic changes, either - and I actually know hockey well enough to figure out how tactics should be set.

Anyways, I just feel like there's something I'm not getting and it takes the fun out of it for me.

dont let your head coach handle practice.

it does not do everything on the practice screen.

your better off doing it yourself.

Riz

i would love to see the head coach handle everything on the practice screen.

i think our point jb is that it's not practice that is the problem. If you have a team with that much superior talent, regardless of how effective your practice is, you shouldn't be getting blown out as often as we seem to be.

and i dunno, i agree with rex. It's starting to take something out of the game for me. It's frustrating, and not in a "i can figure this out so it won't be frustrating way", but in a "goddamnit, everything i do doesn't seem to help so why do i bother" kind of way.

and i know my hockey, i understand what sort of players should be playing what sort of system. In my edited tactic i had a line of talented offensive players setup as a shoot-pass line (with guys specifically noted as shooters) and then a second line with less of an offensive-slant the same way, with designated "shooters" and passers and then lines of neutral-zone trapping, hard-hitting defensive guys. And I was still giving up 3...4...5 goals a game.

So I even upgraded my defense (along with my offensive too BTW) during the offseason, and now I can win some 3-2, 5-4 games, but I'll still (as the #13 team in the league) wind up getting blown out 7-2 or 6-1 way too often by teams that are like #5 in the league.

that's not good AI. That's just getting to be damn frustrating.

you guys might have a point. i am seeing others in the SI forum report the same problem.

it will be very frsutrated not knowing why your losing games with great talent on the team.

For me the biggest thing isn't that I don't know why...hell, if I knew why, that wouldn't make the game fun :)

It's that a team with top-tier talent plays like an ECHL team. Sure, I'll get a few goals, but I'm almost always playing from behind, and when I tie a game, or god forbid win, I feel like "WHOA!"

It's not that my guys are playing poorly, either. I just lose. A lot. (lol)

Sure it's fun to draft in the top 3 every year, but it takes the fun away when your guys turn into amazing players - and still you don't win.

I know exactly how you feel. I have been there a few times with this game and FM. It drives me nuts. That said, I just did win my third straight Stanley Cup with the Caps. I can't explain it any more than I have above... Things just seem to be working. A big part of that has to be Ovechkin and Kessel. They are dominating the league.

This I agree with... currently I am my hometown Cardiff Devils in the EIHL and I'm doing pretty well, but they are probably the best team in the league.

However, whenever I've played an NHL game it seems like it IMPOSSIBLE to beat any team that is "better" than me. The Avalanche, Red Wings and a number of other teams destroy me 6-1, 7-1 every game. Even as a sucky team, those scores don't seem to happen a lot in real life. I end up just giving my starting goaltender a rest when I play the "good" teams because I know I'm letting in a ton of goals and getting blown out anyway, and I'd really like to keep his morale up.

On the flip side, I can beat a team that is "worse" than me pretty much every time. The only games I can't call with 95% accuracy are the games with the couple of teams in the league that are pretty evenly matched with me.

Something just seems a bit off (and again this is only from experience not from hard facts or anything). Seems to me like yes the Av's should beat the Wild most times, but the Wild should still have a chance to keep it close and every now and then sneak a win with great goaltending or a hat trick performance or something.

I've added R. Nash, Heatley, Samsonov, Kubina and just missed out on B. Richards. The Flames are among the top half dozen teams in the league. Iginla hasn't lit it up at all and has been horrible in the playoffs the past two years. I've just decided to turn everything over to the coach except for determining who plays and the line combinations.

Well, my 6 year Blazer dynasty came to a screeching halt last night. I had let the coach handle the tactics and was content to handle roster management. Despite finishing 1st in the WHL 3 straight years, I managed to always get a low first round pick (#2 (2005), #1 (2006), #2 (2007), #8 (2008), #2 and #3 (2009)), but for whatever reason the last two seasons the team just wouldn't gel. I was picked to finish 2nd in the season preview, and found myself 15th at midseason, when the board fired my coach who only had some 60 odd games under his belt.

I certainly understand the fustration mentioned above. My current team is better in every way (ratings wise, at least) to my teams that dominated the WHL 3 seasons ago, but yet we were routinely beaten by 'pathetic' (according to the scout report) teams 5-1, 6-2, etc. Maybe I'm just not a good GM to figure out what my apparent weakness is, but there just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.

archibalduk at sortitoutsi.net made a 69 page EHM 2005 guide that available for download.

It's 69 pages and includes:

* All of the sections already released
* A section on physios
* A section on the NHL Entry Draft
* FAQ
* A table of playable league reputations
* A league guide (fairly similar to the card that came with EHM 2004)

he also plans to make a second edition that shoudl be ready in Sept/Oct.

For the second edition, He already plana to add some tactical diagrams, expand the FAQ, make some minor additions in the league guide, expand the training section and implement any suggestions made by users.

to get the free download guide go here. post #25

http://www.sortitoutsi.net/forums/in...c=18567&st=0&#

I already posted on SI, but I've come across a potential show stopper. When I go to sim, <20 players appear in the lineup. It's gone as low as only 17 players playing. This has led to fatigued and injured players.

I hope it's just a result of the unfaking database and not the game itself.

I have noticed that there is a bit too much of a class system when the games are played. More so, I've noticed it when looking at the NHL games as I kind of expect it in some of the lower leagues.

The Devils just dominated the NHL this past season with just 6 losses. Each season seems to be very similar with the top team just dominating.

I am loving running an ECHL team, though a bit frustrating when my season gets turned upside down by players getting NHL contracts, like one player who had 14 goals in the first 10 games of the season and got yanked out from under me. I've begun developing a philosophy of going with a bunch of average talent guys (for ECHL standards) to avoid any big changes like that.

Re: Scouting

How much do you trust the 'star system'? I'll have guys with good attributes ranked a 1 or 2 and seen as no more than possible fringe players but guys with poorer attributes seen as potential key players.

Is it a waste of time to look at 0, 1 or 2 star players?

Can't really help answer your question, Karim, but I've got a question for you.

Did you ever end up uploading your save game at all with the <20 problem? I see that one of the EHM testers was asking for it. If it is indeed a bug in the game (and not the database), then it'd be nice to get it squashed with the next patch.

I have found some good 3 star players, but I rarely go or even look at 1 or 2 star players. I will take a look at 1 or 2 star prospects if at least one scout has them at a 3 or higher, but if it's 2s or lower across the board I rarely look at them. It certainly could be an over sight on my part, but it's how I usually draft. I would certainly be inclined, however, to go with a 2 star guy (if I happened to find him) with good attributes over a 3 star guy with crappy ones. I assume a 1 or 2 star prospect with good attributes is probably close to reaching his potential and will unlikely improve all that much.

In my most recent draft, I picked a Russian winger in the second round (traded away my first round pick) whoe all of my scouts had ranked as a "3'. None one had him pegged higher. He had fantastic attributes however and my head coach, scout, and assist. GM all said to take him. So I did. I brought him into camp just to see what he was made of. He played in 2 or 3 pre-season games and was freaking awesome. Well over 2 points per game. He's back in Russia now, but now all my scouts are claiming he's a 4 or 5 star prospect. So I guess things can change right quickly.

It happened for three games #78, #79, #80 and then 'corrected' itself so I didn't bother.

Are you looking at the potential or current star ratings?

I find myself not paying much attention to the stars at all. If a player looks like he might be good, regardless of what the scouts say, I usually go with my instincts. I usually only use the scouts ratings as a tie breaker when I am undecided about the player.

I am the opposite i draft all the 4, 5 star guys i can in the draft then look for defensive type guys (hitting, checking pokecheck) to round out my picks. I will have to play enough seasons to give an updated report.

I have run into a problem with my AHL farm team. The head coach is terrible. He is horrible at developling talent. It seems almost any prospect I bring up to the AHL wallows under his crappy tutelege without ever showing any great progress. In fact, it seems better for me to bring a youngster to the NHL and have him sit on the bench or play limited minutes than it is to leave him in the AHL. I can't fire the guy either. It isn't killing my team (back-to-back-to-back Stanley Cups and all :D ), but it is a bit frustrating to see some of my once promising prospects never reach their potential. Then again, maybe I am just drafting the wrong dudes.

Has anyone else noticed that injuries seem to come in bunches? I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like if one guy goes down (for more than a few days) at least one to three more will follow. Right now I have had three players go down to multiple week injuries in a few days. Then I will have long stretches of relative good health. It's odd.

I didn't even know there were two different sets of stars. The only stars I look at are those listed under the scout's name during/after a search.

Under Filters you can adjust the Ability between Any, Potential, and Current. It might be that your scouts are showing you the potential of a player with his skills already close to maxed out, so like HB said he would have very little improvement. For the poorer attribute guys, this is most certainly the case, as the player is probably nowhere near his full potential yet.