UHS Build 8971 – November 16 2015
I had a few other developments lined up for this build, however, the changes to the AutoGM were not accompanied by the updated Roster checking/fixing functions so we began seeing a number of errors. The problem was the errors were more on the back end or when a COM attempted to sim a game. There would be no other indication that there was a roster error to the COM other than the game just not simming.

Also… Happy 70th Birthday, Mom!

Tier 3 Relegation Exemptions
Relegation leagues now have an option to make the bottom teams for Tier 3 be exempt from disbanding / relegation. Subsequently, COMs will lose the ability to add a new team to fill the vacant position since it’s no longer being vacated.

Team Power Rankings
GMs will have a new Team Power Rankings option under the Scouting menu. For leagues that have skills shown, this simply takes the overall skill of the team’s top 4 C, 4 LW, 4 RW, 6 D, and 2 G and sums them together. For leagues that have skills hidden, we compare each team’s players against every other team and accumulate points that way.

Auto-Complete Draft
We’ve built in a new option during the draft. Owners and COMs will now be able to select a “Mall All Draft Picks” button that will basically complete the remainder of the draft. A confirmation message will be shown and the button will become disabled. This was tested using 25-round 30-team league (750 picks) and saw a completion time of 40 seconds. With slower connections, it’s possible you could see up to a minute or more. There is a 2-minute time-out period… if you see a Gateway timeout issue it means the draft was a little too large, however, I *believe* the picks are still being made… it’s just that the browser has lost this particular connection.

You will be able to monitor the progress of the draft through your Public Site > League > Entry Draft.

For Inaugural Drafts, the drafter is designed to select 6 forwards, 3 defense and 1 goalie for every 10 picks. For Entry Drafts, the teams will be selecting the highest Total Skill players first.

AutoGM Modifications (not hotfixed)
AutoGMs will now void trades where they are sending out prospects (players equal or under the Max Age Protected age) and they are receiving no prospects in return.

Fixed an issue with draft pick valuations. Previously it was possible for the AutoGM to value high round draft picks the same as late round draft picks, however, there had to be a pretty unique set of circumstances happen. With the fix, the valuation applied to draft picks by the AutoGM has been lowered.

AutoGMs will now assess the state of their team roster and release extraneous players if they meet the following criteria:
– Buying out the player will not bring the team below $10 million.
– Player’s age must be greater than MaxAgeProtected (prospect players are exempt from release).
– Player must not be on a game roster.
– Player must be out of the top X for each position (doubled if a real farm team exists): C/LW/RW = 5; D = 8; G = 3.

AutoGM & Forwards ** – Released as Hotfix on November 2 2015
The AutoGM and the Roster Fixer functions have been updated to better handle Forward players (vs. C, LW, RW). Previously, Forwards were inserted a roster position without looking at whether other forward positions had vacancies. For example: 3 F players Joe, John, James were inserted as Centers, even though the team already had 3 Centers (but happened to be lower skilled than the Forwards) and despite the fact the team had no LWs! This meant the team would look elsewhere to fill those empty spots (farm team, free agency, waivers, makeweights).

The changes made will now mean that Forwards will be used to fill empty positions first before being reinserted based on skill. For the above example: Joe, John, James will be marked as LWs internally (you won’t see this) to ensure the game roster minimums can be met and a roster can be created.

Additionally, the AutoGM will now always set their best Pro and Farm Game Roster, regardless if a valid Game Roster is already set. Previously, the Game Roster would only be set / changed if a player was injured or suspended. This also means that the AutoGM will over-write any changes you might make to their rosters.

The AutoGM will now look at players to move down to the farm team AFTER the Pro Game Roster has been set and BEFORE the Farm Game Roster is set. Previously, the AutoGM moved players down to the farm before the Pro Game Roster was set… this led to high-level players being sent down because the Game Roster was valid and there was no need for the extra player.

Bug Fixes & Miscellaneous Changes
– Teams changed to AutoGM will change their prospect scouting to 0 since AutoGMs don’t use it anyway.
– Updated the RosterFixer function to integrate Forwards better into a GameRoster.
– Fixed an issue where GMs could ignore the Free Agent Decline Hours setting and make multiple offers to free agent coaches until he accepted an offer.
– Fixed an issue where Goalie Save Pcts were over-inflated for Team Career Spct leaders in Public Websites.
– Fixed an issue where a team could have an incorrect roster and the GM / COM may not even know… this prevented games from being simmed but returned no errors indicating a roster issue, leaving the GM/COM unable to proceed with the season.

Hot Fixes
– Fixed an issue where the new mailer was not working the live / public version of UHS (but it DID work through the test version). Released as hotfix on October 25 2015.
– Fixed an issue where teams could not be assigned to AutoGM if there was already a schedule created. Released as hotfix on October 26 2015.
– Fixed an issue where sometimes a schedule could not be created in Relegation leagues. Released as hotfix on October 27 2015.
– Fixed an issue where the PlayOff Tree would not display on Public Sites for Relegation Leagues. Released as hotfix on October 27 2015.
– Fixed an issue where saving General settings in Season 2 and beyond would cause a league to revert from a Relegation League to a Standard League. Released as hotfix on October 27 2015.
– Fixed an issue where Free Agents idle for 2 or more seasons were not having their Last Salary and Last Contract Value numbers adjusted downwards. Those values should be 75% of the previous value for each season after the first idle season. Released as hotfix on October 28 2015.
– Released code that allows UHS Admin to toggle whether SavePoints are allowed for all leagues. This will be used when we have builds being released that require previous SavePoints be to be updated with database changes. Released as hotfix on October 28 2015.