This one took a very, very long time to do. Between family, other hobbies and health, finding the time to get this done was a challenge and even then, the sheer amount of changes necessary was far larger than I had originally thought. Every time I turned around, I found myself needing to change a script or add a field to a table. Every time I made a change, I had to go back and start testing from scratch to make sure I didn’t mess up something that was already good to go. Overall we made 561 changes… it’s possible this could be the single biggest build number leap that we’ve had since we started UHS Dark.
There are a bunch of other smaller changes and fixes I made. I’ve decided to bundle in the miscellaneous changes in with the Bug Fixes just to save on Build Note real estate. We also managed to fix the issue where emails weren’t getting received by Microsoft accounts, so there’s that, too.
I checked the dates and this release would have come out around three months after our last one… to me it’s way too long… it’s a combination of the sheer size of the Relegation development + body issues; but I’m really hoping to get back to the usual once/month release schedule. I do fully expect there to be some fixes, although I really hope I’ve caught all the errors before they’ve gone live. Time will tell.
Relegation Leagues are Here!
Relegation leagues will allow you to run your league in a similar fashion to that of the Premier League… teams that finish in the bottom get demoted (relegated) to the next tier down while top teams get promoted to the next tier up. You can only toggle Relegation during Season 1 Off-Season. Once you’ve started your season, your league will be a Relegation League until you decide to Reset it.
In UHS, Relegation Leagues will consist of one, two or three tiers. All tiers will be able to handle their own separate conferences and divisions just as they do now, however, you should keep in mind that the bottom team(s) of each DIVISION will be relegated down. So if you’ve set that the bottom 2 teams will get demoted (and subsequently the top two from the lower tier get promoted) and you have 4 divisions, this means that in total 8 teams will get demoted (2 from each division). Due to this, we recommend you go with a one-conference, one-division set up, however, you are definitely free to do more.
When determining teams to promote, UHS will look at the playoff champions for each Tier and automatically place them as the team to be promoted, regardless of their finish in the regular season standings. If the COM has set up the league to relegate/promote multiple teams, the regular season standings are then used to determine the other teams being promoted.
Relegation leagues will have no Farm league and no Junior league. Teams will obtain their players via Free Agency only. Since there is no Farm league, Waivers is disabled.
When a team is relegated out from Tier 3 (the bottom Tier), the team becomes defunct and all players are placed in Free Agency for bidding. The COM is given an opportunity to create new teams, set whether they are Auto-GM’d and whether they will be created pre-loaded with players.
Trades are allowed between Tiers. All three tiers act as Pro Level when comparing it to a Standard UHS League.
Players cannot be loaned to other teams as they are in Premier League soccer. We are not adding that aspect of soccer to our Relegation development. If you want a player you will need to either trade for him or pick him up via Free Agency.
There is no Entry Draft. Young players will need to be manually created by the COM so that teams can sign them in Free Agency. It is recommended that one player is created for every player that just retired (not including players that were forced into retirement due to lack of playing time). Since there is no Entry Draft, trading draft picks is not allowed and should be hidden.
You can find the Relegation settings in Settings > General.
Email Fixed!
As some of you might know, receiving an email from UHS to your Hotmail.com, Outlook.com, Live.com, or any Microsoft-hosted domain would result in the email message never appearing. The dang thing would never even appear in your Spam / Junk Mail folder. We’ve fixed that.
Expansion Drafts
I’ve added code to only show Pro level teams that have not played in previous seasons for the team selection drop-down. Additionally, when there is only one expansion team in the list, that team will be automatically selected so we can shave off a few seconds of COM mouse-clicking.
Expansion & Distribution Draft links
The Expansion Draft and Distribution Draft links will no longer appear if the league is in Season 1 since these tools are really only used in leagues that are in Season 2 and beyond.
Bug Fixes & Miscellaneous Changes
– Fixed an issue on Public Websites where the Misconduct penalties were appearing as “Game” penalties when only 10-minutes was intended.
– Lawyers Settings have been added to the Settings Home page.
– The League Structure links in the Settings Home page will now only be shown if the league is in the Off-Season.
– Fixed an issue where the Public Site contact form would incorrectly use the Championship Teams header.
– The new reCaptcha v2 package has been installed on all public forms that generate emails (the ones that don’t require you to log into UHS).
– COMs can now select whether Imported NHL Teams will be Auto-GM’d.
– Fixed an issue where Logo images with spaces in their file names would not be displayed on the public website.
– Fixed an issue where AutoGMs would create 3 RW and 3 LW any time they needed to create a makeweight.
– Fixed an issue where only Pro league series were being automatically created. Farm and Junior series would not be created even if the COM had setup their playoff settings.
– Removed some debugging code from being displayed when using League Grouped for playoff series creation.
– Fixed an issue on Public Websites where the links on the Team Home page would take you to the incorrect page.
– Additional checks have been added for Teams without arenas. Applicable teams will be automatically set to use the Default Arena.
– Fixed an issue where Offers on Free Agent Coaches would not always update properly and result in the coach not being signed.
– The RFA text will now be shown in Red to make it stand out more in the list of free agents.
– Teams now have an option to offer Money as part of RFA Compensation.
– Fixed an issue where the Next and Previous arrow buttons were not appearing on datepicker popups.
– Playoff games that are Not Needed will no longer appear in Public Website’s schedule.
– Fixed an issue in the Teams list for Public Websites where the defunct indicator would not appear beside a team’s name.
– GMs will no longer be able to view trade offers that they are not directly involved with (either the sending team or the receiving team).
– Clicking on the Trade ID link in the public site will now correctly take you to UHS, requiring you to login to view the trade.
– Retired players will no longer appear in the drop-down list for Player Training.
– COMs and Owners will now be able to use the Compare Player tool.
– The public website Team Career leaders page will now properly show all applicable players… I must have created this initially while completely intoxicated.
Hot Fixes
– Fixed an issue that prevented newly created leagues from being used. Owners would not receive user account info and the new leagues resulted in failed cron jobs. Released on July 21 2015.
– Fixed an issue where players given Match penalties (not to be confused with Misconducts or Game penalties) were not actually removed from the game and were instead only give 5 PIM. Released on July 29 2015.
– Fixed an issue where Misconduct penalties were appearing as “Game” penalties when only 10-minutes was intended. Fix will not be released for public websites until the next build is released. Released on July 29 2015.
– Fixed an issue where the Waiver priority was using the Entry Draft order instead of the current Regular Season standings. Released on July 29 2015.
– Fixed an issue where switching to Playoffs while in Career Stats would result in a Fatal Error. Released on August 11 2015 (Fix for Public Sites will be released with build).
– Goaltender Career Stats now only require the 20 GP Minimum if viewing GAA or SPct. Released on August 11 2015 (Fix for Public Sites will be released with build).
– Fixed an issue where the Automatic Draft List was not working for Inaugural Drafts. Released on October 15 2015.
– Fixed an issue where draft picks for new teams were sometimes not being created when the number of draft rounds was changed. Released October 20 2015.