UHS Build 15300 – January 2019
The last build was back in July. YIKES! The initial plan was to blueprint out Captains & Alternates in August (which did happen) but then I got caught up with my other responsibilities in World of Warcraft. Sept & Oct merged to get me focused on BlizzCon, then BlizzCon happened, then November just flew by.
Overall my goal is still to release a build once a month but I can’t guarantee that it’s going to happen. I’m still focused on keeping NHL rosters updated with player moves on a daily basis and I’m also still looking for a reliable person to generate or update NHL skill characteristics (AG, PS, CH, etc); this isn’t a paying position, so I’m not overly optimistic. I’ll continue adding players and updating characteristics as best I can.
Captains & Alternates
This development has been on our wishlist for EIGHT YEARS. It’s a long time but it’s finally here. We actually did quite a bit of work on it, got distracted by BlizzCon a bit and then came back to it only to realize that adding the Cap/Alt as a Contract or Free Agent Offer was a LOT more complicated than what we blueprinted out. Cap/Alts affecting contracts / FA offers were removed so we could move forward with the build.
Teams will be able to name a Captain and 2 Alternates for their Pro team only and can only be done during the off-season. Cap/Alts provide a possible skill bonus to players on their lines (more below). Changing the Cap/Alts does have some potential disasterous effects, the chance of which decreases as the player ages (see changes to Hold Outs). As much as I hate to say this, goaltenders cannot be marked as Cap/Alts for the team.
While a Cap/Alt cannot be moved to the farm team, they can be traded. Traded players will lose their Cap/Alt designation with no ill effects on the player.
Captains provide a 20% chance to all players on the ice with them to increase each skill by one point. Alternates provide a 10% chance to increase skill points by one point. The chance does stack, so have your Captain and both Alternate Captains on the ice at the same time would provide a 40% chance to increase player’s skills by one point.
This chance is only applied to players that are actually on the ice with the Cap/Alts, including the goaltender. The chance is also applied for each player’s skill points (AG, CH, SH, PS) individually and not to the player as a whole. A player’s skill also cannot be raised higher than 9.
Captain / Assistant Letter Stripping Chance of Hold Out
When removing the Cap/Alt letter from a player to assign it to someone else, the former Cap/Alt has a chance to become a Hold Out. Hold Outs now have seriously detrimental effects on their team (outlined below). The chance does decrease as the player ages but never goes away.
Age 15-20: 100% chance
Age 21: 90% chance
Age 22: 80% chance
Age 23: 70% chance
Age 24: 60% chance
Age 25: 50% chance
Age 26: 40% chance
Age 27: 30% chance
Age 28: 20% chance
Age 29+: 10% chance
Hold Out Changes
Any player that becomes a Hold Out, either due to Cap/Alt letter stripping, getting low-balled a contract offer or demanding a trade after a game will now have some serious negative impacts on your team. It is in your team’s best interest to move these players as soon as possible.
This does include players that are holding out for Free Agency. If they got to that point, your offer must have been terrible. Since Free Agency Hold Outs do not get their Hold Out flag cleared after a trade, if you are NOT in the Off-Season, your only option here is to buy out the player.
For Age Rerate leagues Hold Outs now have a -50% modifier on their own rerates as well as impose a -25% modifier on ALL PLAYERS on their team. This effect is cumulative, so having 3 Hold Out players imposes a -75% modifier on player rerates.
The Hold Out player also has a negative impact to players on the ice: the Hold Out player has a -2 modifier applied to all their skills and also has a 25% chance to impose a -2 penalty to all other players on the ice with them. If there are multiple Hold Outs, this chance is cumulative, however, the skill penalty will always be -2.
Currently there is no Hold Out penalty imposed on the team signing new players, however, it’s possible this could be added at a later date, depending on what data we see after deployment.
AutoGMs will make low-ball trade offers to move Hold Out players off their team. Any players that are Holding Out for Free Agency will be bought out regardless of the AutoGM’s financial situation.
Bug Fixes & Miscellaneous Changes
– A new Free Agent Scouting report has been added to the League > Free Agency sub-menu. This report will only show up for leagues where skills are hidden.
– We’ve fixed an issue where weird lines or blocks would show up on the bottom row of each division’s standings. Thanks to Allan from DataTables!
– Team’s Season Net and links to team pages have been added to the Team Finances report.
– Fixed an issue where the Rookie marker (*) was not appearing in the Login-Site version of the Team Personnel page.
– Fixed an issue where AutoGM replies to trade offers could have the incorrect responses as some responses were carryovers from other, separate trade offers.
– Fixed an issue where the AutoGM would evaluate their own players as prospects if the other team was offering prospect players.
– AutoGMs making contract offers will use 90% as the low-end of their offer range instead of 75%.
– Fixed an issue where Conferences and Divisions could not be used for the Assign All feature for All Star Team Management.
– Fixed an issue where traded Junior players would appear on the new Pro team, however, could not be move down. The players will now remain at the junior level and their junior teams.
– Fixed an issue where leagues were allowed to create SavePoints over their maximum.
– Fixed an issue where successful farm coaches would appear to have extra Permission Requests. Coaches with a 0.650 win pct on the farm team have a 20% chance to make permission request regardless of how many have been made in the current season.
– Fixed an issue where the League Power & Chemistry (PubSites) and Power Rankings reports were not recording all player skills properly (was using only the last player seen) or assigning Forwards to the correct C,LW,RW position.
– The League Power & Chemistry (PubSites) and Power Rankings reports will now only look at Pro level players.
– Fixed an issue where Free Agent Salary Expectations were being tuned far too low, sometimes past the league Minimum Salary. We’ve modified the Salary Expectation to no longer consider how long the player has been on the Free Agent market. The Salary Expectation will now just consider the player’s age and skill.
– AutoGMs will no longer create makeweights if there is enough time between now and the next scheduled game to sign a free agent.
– The “Queue Live” button has been moved to the other side of the Live Game Time text field. This was done as the Queue Live button was too close to the Queue Games button on small screens, resulting in games being accidentally queued for Live mode instead of just regular mode.
– Fixed an issue preventing Junior playoff series settings from being saved.
Hot Fixes
– Fixed an issue where only one goaltender was being created for All-Star Teams. July 21 2018.
– Fixed an issue where new teams being added to the league would not have an empty spot to claim in the Draft Order. July 22 2018.
– Added Chemistry and Jersey to the list of editable fields for a player. July 22 2018.
– Fixed an issue preventing single teams from being set back to AutoGM during a season. July 24 2018.
– Fixed an issue where some Assistant GM accounts could not have their permissions updated. July 24 2018.
– Fixed an issue that prevented coaches from being offered new contracts. July 27 2018.
– Fixed an issue where farm teams needing to create makeweights would not consider players already on the farm team’s roster. July 30 2018.
– Added the Injured Games, Injury Type and Suspended Games fields to the list of field available for editing for players. August 11 2018.
– All retired players will now show up in the Hall of Fame induction list (previously only retired players currently assigned to teams would appear). Additionally, COMs have the option of selecting what team that player will be known for when they are inducted to the Hall of Fame. Oct 12 2018.
– Fixed an issue where some players were not showing up in the free agency list. Oct 19 2018.
– Fixed an issue where the Season number was not displaying for RFA compensation. Oct 23 2018.
– Fixed an issue where Junior players being traded were not showing up on their new teams. Nov 12 2018.
– Fixed an issue where a specific scenario could cause the AutoGM to get into a Purchase/Buy-Out loop for a Free Agent filler. Nov 20 2018.
– Fixed an issue where the AutoGM could draft players younger than the draft age during Inaugural Drafts. Dec 11 2018.
– Fixed an issue where player salaries were not being calculated after being selected in the Inaugural Draft. Dec 12 2018.
– Fixed an issue where All-Star Teams could not use the Assign All button for Conference and Division players. Jan 2 2019.
– Fixed an issue where using Copy Codes would fail due to a legacy “Medical Facilities” reference. Jan 2 2019.
– Fixed an issue where a lesser skilled player (we’re looking at you Gaving Larman) in the All-Star Skills competition would result in the All-Star game never finishing. Jan 2 2019.