BUILD 4076 - November 18-28 2011
This build is composed primarily of hotfixes that were applied since the last build. We focused on enhancements that did not require database changes as doing
so would always require downtime for the build to be released. We also went through our current development list to re-assess and have removed some items
from development. You can find the current list of development wish-list items on our forums... anything that is Stickied is slated for development. The
following changes were released through the month of November.
Please be aware that during the holidays we are are going to pause work on any new developments and will resume work in the new year. If there are any bugs
found we will always attempt to fix them as soon as possible.
Ad Hoc Selections: Add a new option to allow a COM to make an ad hoc draft selection. This will not take up a draft pick nor will the overall/round be
tracked. This is meant for special picks or when a pick must be made immediately without disrupting the flow of the draft. Released as hotfix on
November 18 2011.
All-Star Rosters: When creating your all-star rosters, the form will now remember the last all-star team you entered. This will remove the need to constantly
re-select a team after each player selection. Released as hotfix on November 18 2011.
All-Star Lines: COMs now have the ability to set All-Star Team lines. Lines will be always be in 4Line format. Released as hotfix on November 18 2011.
Compare Team: You now have the ability to compare your pro team against another pro team. Both teams must have game rosters set. If your league has skills
hidden, the ratings for each category are calculated differently to protect player skill values. If your league has skills shown, the ratings are simply a
cumulative total of player skills for each category. Released as hotfix on November 23 2011.
GM Draft List:
- A change was made so players already appearing in the GM's draft list would no longer appear in the "Select Player" list. Released as hotfix on November 18 2011.
- Commissioners can now view GM Draft Lists if they are available. The link is only available during the Off-Season and is located in the Team Management submenu.
Released as hotfix on November 28 2011.
Live Games: Big changes here!
- The design / layout of Live Games has been changed so we can fit more STUFF!
- The Scoring Summary is now available for your live game. This will only work for games simmed moving forward. Viewing an older game in Instant Replay will not
populate the Scoring Summary.
- The Penalty Summary is now available for your live game. Like the Scoring Summary this will only work on games being simmed from here on out. Older games viewed
with Instant Replay will not populate the Penalty Summary.
- You now have an Out-of-Town (OOT) Scoreboard. You can keep tabs on all live games being simmed that day. Please note the OOT games shown will appear to start at
the same time as the game you are watching even if they both have different start times.
Manual Suspensions: Leagues that use manual suspensions will now find the game number as a link to the game result. Released as hotfix on November 18 2011.
Player Searches: The Player Search function now has a 1 second delay between keystrokes and requires a minimum of 3 characters. Released as hotfix on November 18 2011.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue with PayPal subscription signups. Released on November 6 2011.
- Fixed an issue where some league owners were incorrectly receiving automated messages about their leagues being inactive. Released on November 8 2011.
- Fixed an issue where some UHS IMs would potentially be deleted before being received. All IMs have a 7 day expiry regardless of whether they've been read by the
recipient. Released on November 11 2011.
- Fixed an issue where UHS IMs would not appear in IE or Chrome. Released on November 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where javascript exception errors would appear. This was related to out-dated functions that were no longer in use. Released on November 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where early retirements may appear to be from a team. Released on November 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where retired players may have the incorrect "becomes a coach" text. Released on November 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where retired players were not being removed from their shootout list. This resulted in abnormal behaviour during the shootout. Released on November 13 2011.
- Fixed an issue where team finances would not get updated when trading money via GM-initiated trades. Released on November 14 2011.
- Fixed an issue where shoot-out list loading would sometimes result in errors on the screen. Released on November 14 2011.
- Fixed an issue where traded money was not being accounted for in the Total Revenue and Total Expenses lines in the GM Finances page. Released on November 15 2011.
- Fixed an issue where hitting refresh on a Head-to-Head game would cause UHS to hang. Released on November 15 2011.
- Fixed an issue where teams would still use an old/outdated shoot-out list. Released on November 15 2011.
- Fixed an issue where players previously injured or suspended may not be able to get loaded into the shoot-out list. Released on November 17 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a play-by-play would be printed if a player shifted off and passed to himself (on the next line). Released on November 22 2011.
- Fixed an issue where offering some players contracts would result in a divide by zero warning. Released on November 24 2011.
- Fixed an issue where excessively long shoot-outs would result in a Fatal Error during a sim. Released on November 30 2011.
- Fixed an issue where penalty calls with spaces would shown up oddly in the Penalty Summary table in the Live Game viewer. Released on December 1 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the new Compare Tool was not storing comparison results in the correct category. Released on December 2 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the PenaltyType was being appended to the PenaltyCall in the Penalty Tracker. Released on December 2 2011.
BUILD 3985 - November 6 2011
This is a fairly small release aimed at tweaking some settings and performing bug fixes.
Sim Engine
- The home ice advantage modifier has been changed somewhat. The previous modifications gave the home team a larger than normal advantage which tended to
upset shot balances and more or less reinstated god-like teams. The modifier will only be applied on home scoring chances going forward and is NOT a negative
modifier for visiting team scoring chances.
- The base shooting standard has been decreased to improve goaltender statistics. This does mean player statistics will decrease, however, testing shows they
decrease to an acceptable level.
[BUG FIXES]
- Due to the changes we made to improve the number of assists / points, goaltenders were beginning to challenge for top spot in the league. We have changed
goaltenders so that they will not pass as frequently when they control the puck.
- Fixed an issue where GMs could not view their farm roster or farm lineups when in the pre-season.
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM may not accept trades when draft picks were not included.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed issue where clicking on Current Reports would take the user to the Home page. Released on October 23 2011.
BUILD 3974 - October 21 2011
With this release UHS officially leaves beta. It has been a long 7 years and I want to sincerely thank everyone who has helped us out. Whether you've used UHS
in the past or are a tester, you have helped us tremendously by providing tons of sim data, bug reports and assistance with development discussions. Now despite
us being out of beta and considered "live", we're going to keep this relatively quiet in that we won't be doing any advertising or strong marketing pushes until
we've seen whether this build will be stable. This release has some fairly significant changes to it.
UHS Premium Services
From day 1 I knew I wanted to be able to make some kind of money off of my work. It is a hobby I love, however, that does not pay the bills. I would love to be
able to devote my whole day to UHS and hopefully in the long-term UHS Premium Services is the way I can do that. I wanted to ensure that while we offered premium
services they were just that... premium. They are not required whatsoever by any leagues to run, but the benefits they offer are well worth the price.
Another piece that I thought about was whether to make UHS completely free (or at least ad-driven) or charge a fee for use. I would love to be able to do ad-driven,
however, for what I want UHS to be (and what I know it will become) I think it was fairly evident that I needed to find a fee of some kind. So all new leagues going
forward will be free for two seasons. After the second season the league commissioner will need to pay a fairly small fee for $9.99 to unlock unlimited seasons.
I think it's a fairly reasonable fee for everything you get with UHS. As a thank you to all of our beta testers all of your current leagues have already been unlocked
free of charge.
As far as the Premium Services, like I mentioned before, aside from the unlocking of UHS after season 2, these services are ones that you definitely do not "need" but will
come in handy. They are designed around monthly subscriptions through paypal. As we continue I'm sure we'll change them but at least for the time being let me go over
what we're offering:
Exclusive Cron Jobs: All leagues are set up to have their cron jobs run as a group every 15 minutes. With this service you get cron jobs specifically set up for your league
to run once a minute. Cron jobs handle things like AutoGM decisions, free agent signings, live game updates, and so on. If you think you're waiting too long, you can
sign up for this at $4.99 / month.
Unlimited Save Points: All leagues are allowed to save up to 5 save points. You can unlock "unlimited" save points (actually up to 9,999 saves) by signing up for $9.99 / month.
No Ads (Individual): As an individual, if you want to get rid of the advertisements in UHS, you can sign up for $2.99 / month. Any account you have signed up with under
your email address will no longer see advertisements. It's better for you if you use the same email address across multiple leagues (if you're in them) as this benefit
is based solely on the email address you used when subscribing.
No Ads (League): As the COM, you can sign your league up for this at $9.99 / month. All of your users will no longer see advertisements when logged into your league.
FTP Access: This will get you access to your league's subdomain and allow you to truly customize your league's public presence. Access to FTP is $9.99 / month.
Premium Package: Of course, it would make sense for us to put a package together. For a monthly subscription of $19.99 / month you will get Exclusive Cron Jobs, Unlimited
Save Points, No Ads (League) and FTP Access. Subscribed individually these have a value of $35 / month. For leagues that have not already done so, we will throw in
Unlimited Seasons ($10 value).
Sim Engine Fine-Tuning
After our last major tune-up of the sim engine we finally managed to deal with the issue of super-teams. No longer would we see teams outshoot their opponents 75 - 6.
Looking at our data and reports from our users we needed to further refine the engine. Testing results are pretty decent. We compared our results with the NHL 2010-2011
season (last season) and took the top 10 point-, goal-, and assist-scorers in the league. In our final round of testing we finished at -31 points, +17 goals, +29 assists
comparatively. This is very close to what the NHL has produced but by no means am I saying we are done fine-tuning. If we have an opportunity (or need) to further fine-tune
the engine, we will.
Additionally, we added a home-team advantage modifier as it was apparent the home-team has a disadvantage. The puzzling thing is that we could not isolate any one thing that
would contribute to the visiting teams winning so many games. The advantage we've give to the home team has been really very minor, but it has produced desirable results:
home teams win/loss ratio should be in the 1.25 to 1.3 range. This is slightly under the NHL mark of 1.47, however, I believe the numbers are slightly off more because of
how I recorded my losses (OTL were being added into the regular L column). So we should be around the NHL mark but we will continue to monitor.
We've had to monkey around with the sim engine a bit (see the above two paragraphs) so by doing this we noticed it threw shot totals out of whack again.. we were seeing either
too few shots or too many during testing. We should be back to "normal". I don't know what the NHL standards are for this category, however, home teams were averaging 30
shots a game while visiting teams were averaging 25 shots a game. This difference is due to the home-ice advantage modifier plays out. Overall we have a 27 shots per game
average which seems okay to me. I've seen some wonky ones like 48-13 but in a RNG engine you're going to get those. They should be few and far between.
Help Files
I've gone through most UHS pages and created Help files. You will now see a question mark on each UHS page you visit. Clicking that will open a small new window with information
about the page you're on.... it will show things like what you can do, how to use it, etc. Overall I wanted to do a more interactive help system (and I probably still will
at some point), but I found myself again always wanting to add one more thing before UHS should leave beta... it was always "one more thing"... so hopefully the information
here will help you out... and if not, you can always contact us at uhs@hockeysim.ca or on our forums at http://forums.hockeysim.ca.
Injury/Suspension Toggle
More accurately though, this is an injury toggle. By default this is on, however, you have the option now of switching injuries off. As a direct result of that your players will
no longer be suspended.
Asst.GM / Asst.COM Removed
I have removed these two roles from the Account Creation screen until I can wrap my head around what I really want those to be and how they will interact with the other roles.
For instance does the Asst.GM role have a set number of things they can do or can the team's GM actively maintain their authorization? Just questions like that need to be
answered before I can adequately create those roles in UHS.
[BUG FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where errors for COM trades would sometimes not appear in red.
- Fixed a bug where All Players would not appear for leagues where skills were visible.
- Fixed an issue where chemistry was not being applied properly in some cases to skate / pass outcome logic.
- Fixed an issue where shootout losses would not update a team's point total.
- Fixed an issue where excessively long games will no longer be cut off in the 2nd overtime period. This fix only applies to games going forward.
- Fixed an issue where a user could skip multiple wizard steps by excessively clicking.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where some fields were not being detected as NULL. This potentially affected live games being displayed in the schedule properly. Released as hotfix on August 8 2011.
- Fixed an issue where using AutoPlay to sim a full game day would return a blank screen. Released as hotfix on August 9 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the previous player's skill class would show up if the current player's skill class did not exist. Released as hotfix on August 21 2011.
BUILD 3767 - August 8 2011
This release allows UHS to come one step closer to a major milestone: end of beta. The last thing that I'm aiming at for this to happen is to get some kind of help file or
documentation for UHS prepared. The majority of this build can be attributed to database streamlining and the creation of the league setup wizard.
League Wizard
New leagues will now be shown the league setup wizard immediately upon login. The step-by-step guide will allow new leagues (or newly reset leagues) to create pro, farm and
junior league teams, structure and schedules. In addition to this the COM will be able to set their league's initial draft, free agency and trade deadline dates. COMs
will also be able to create any extra players that may be needed and set the number of rounds they desire for their inaugural draft. As mentioned earlier, whenever a
league is reset, this wizard will be triggered. The wizard can be exited at any time to allow the COM to set the remainder of the league up manually.
Default Settings
Some default settings have changed:
- League salary cap has been increased to $50 million up from $30 million.
- Early Retirement is now triggered after 5 inactive seasons down from 99.
- Referee Tolerance is now 5% down from 7%.
- Maximum Ticket Price is up $100 up from $75.
UI Changes
- The League link has been removed.
- The shoot-out list has been completely redesigned to now use drop-downs for each spot.
- GMs now have the ability to set their farm team's shoot-out list.
- Goalies will no longer be selected for a team's shoot-out list.
- The Available Prospects report has been changed to include players that are a year younger if the league has already progressed past the current season's entry draft.
- The COM's manual suspension screen has been converted to the new UHS v3 style.
- The new default section for Scouting is the Player Search.
- The Waiver priority list is now contained in a drop-down list to address real estate issues for larger leagues.
- Player profiles now show how many pro championships a player has won.
- Player profile scouting reports are now insta-clicks. A single click will take you immediately back to the player profile instead of requiring the user to manually do this.
This also applies to Coach profiles.
- The Free Agency page will now show the skill class or total skill of a player depending on whether skills are hidden or shown.
- The Free Agency page will now show the number of bids on a given free agent.
- The Schedule tool now allows you to select 12, 14, 16, 18 or 20 games to be played against a given opponent.
- COMs now have a "Reports" link in their TOC.
- COMs now have three new reports in their new Reports area: League Injuries and Suspensions, Contract Offer Results, RFA Tracker.
Cron Job Time Changes
- We are going to be drastically scaling back when our cron jobs run. These jobs will all run once every 15 minutes. This is being done to prepare for UHS premium services.
[BUG FIXES]
- Fixed a bug where the extra attacker could be duplicated on the ice if the line happened to shift off while the Extra Attacker was still on.
- Fixed an issue where the Player Search was not highlighting on the results.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed a bug where teams winning a championship would not have their players' Cups victories incremented. If you have any teams in this predicament, please contact
us at uhs@hockeysim.ca and let us know what the PlayerIDs are and how many Cup victories they should have. Released July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the new AutoGM cron job was referring to old $_SESSION variables. This resulted in abnormal behaviour (like AutoGMs getting the jump on the
Entry Draft). Released July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a player still in the penalty box could get penalized again. Released as hotfix on July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the IM header was covering the UserName thereby preventing users from accessing their account information. Released as hotfix on July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the IM list was being covered by the Twitter feed. Released as hotfix on July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where users were unable to upload their game rosters via the File Upload feature. Released as hotfix on July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where team and player streaks were not being tracked. As such, most leagues will have had these items set back to 0 so they may begin to be tracked
properly. Released as hotfix on July 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM would not sign any drafted players. Released as hotfix on July 8 2011.
- Fixed an issue where goaltenders would receive Game Misconduct penalties. Released as hotfix on July 10 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the Arena Maintenance Fee being charged to a team would have a date of 0000-00-00 in the Ledger. Released as hotfix on July 10 2011.
- Fixed an issue where team's finances would not be updated when sending or receiving money via trade. Released as hotfix on July 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM would accept pretty much any trade offered to them. Released as hotfix on July 8 2011.
- Decreased the chance of goaltenders receiving penalties from 25% to 10%. Released as hotfix on July 14 2011.
- Fixed and released issues where an AutoGM accepting a trade could sometimes result in assets not being moved. Released as hotfix on July 21 2011.
- Fixed an issue where accepted trades with the AutoGM would not update the team finances. Released as hotfix on July 26 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM would always put players through waivers. Released as hotfix on July 27 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the shoot out list would not auto-populate. This prevented users from seeing the shoot-out lists to modify them. Released as hotfix on July 27 2011.
BUILD 2893 - June 27 2011
Advertising
The biggest change you are going to notice in this build is that we have added three new advertising sections. We have added box advertisements on the right side and a
leaderboard at the footer. Additionally, we have added a leaderboard on the footer in the Forums. This is a necessary change, one that will hopefully allow UHS to
become self-sufficient on server costs and (long-run) give me the opportunity to concentrate on UHS 100% of the time. If you are interested in advertising with us
please see the new Advertising link in your TOC.
Account Changes
The link to "Account" has been removed from the TOC. Instead you can now click your UserName in the top right corner of the page to access your account information.
On a side note, COMs now have the ability to change their own account information.
Future Simming
COMs will no longer be able to move between game days. This was a necessary change to prevent unnecessary coding to compensate for future game days being completely
simmed. For example, if you simmed game day 20 and didn't sim anything from days 1 to 19, some of the tools you had would only show you game day 20 (or the most
recent game day simmed). From here on out, game days must be simmed linearly.
[BUG FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where shots would sometimes be deflected by their own teammates.
- Fixed an issue where goaltenders would appear to be checked in the play-by-play.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where GMs would see "0 0" at the bottom of their League News section. Released June 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where GMs would see their Home page tabs wrap when using IE or FF browsers. This issue did not affect Chrome. Released June 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the Right Media bar would not align properly on the GM Home page. Released June 12 2011.
- Fixed an issue where Checks Given were not being recorded. Released June 13 2011.
- Fixed an issue where PIMs were not being recorded. Released June 13 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the play by play would not show the goalie's last name. Released June 14 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the penalty Too Many Men was being called too often. Released June 17 2011.
- Fixed an issue where goaltenders were being treated as regular players when checking for penalties. This resulted in more penalties handed out to goaltenders than
normal. Released June 17 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a player could be on the ice twice in some situations where the goaltender was pulled for an extra attacker. Released June 24 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a player's height could appear one inch shorter on their profile page. Released June 24 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the winner of a fight was actually the losing fighter. Released June 24 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the goaltender would appear to be shifting off in the play by play when he never did. Released June 24 2011.
- Changed momentum gained from fighting from 25 to 15 and ensured momentum will never stack. Released June 24 2011.
- Applied a fix to rerates for AG. More majors will now result in AG rerating up. Released June 24 2011.
BUILD 2859 - June 12 2011
This is a fairly large build that's being released. The primary focus was to put in the last changes before focusing on our final steps towards getting out of
beta and opening UHS up to a wider audience.
Social Media
We've added a right side bar to the UI to feature our Facebook and Twitter presences.
You can find our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ultimate-Hockey-Simulator/99572202133.
You can also follow us on Twitter: @HockeySimCA.
SIM Engine Changes
There were a ton of changes applied to the engine. In the past very strong teams were unbeatable and would average out around 60-70 shots a game. The primary
focus of this engine upgrade was to change how the passing / skating logic was done so that weaker teams had a better chance at competing. Now instead of
60-70 shots a game, extremely strong teams will be averaging upwards of 30 shots a game. This doesn't mean these teams will suddenly lose 20 games... it
means they are beatable now... even against the weakest of opponents. Since we opened up the hood, so to speak, we decided this is when we were going to
apply all the other changes we've been meaning to do. I can say that this will very likely be last major overhaul of the engine. From here on out we'll be
making minor tweaks here and there as needed.
Logic Changes
- New passing and skating logic is based on a modification of the 50-50 rule.
- The chance for a goalie to negate icing is now 25% down from 80%.
- Shots now have a 33% chance to either go wide of the net, hit the post or be blocked.
- The chance to block a shot is now 13% up from 10%.
- The chance for icing to occur is now 10% up from 5%.
- The chance for offsides to occur is now 20% up from 5%.
- The powerplay bonus has been increased to 5% / 10% up from 3% / 6%.
- The long pass attempt chance is now 15% down from 30% to encourage more assists.
- The chemistry modifier has been changed to 10, 5, 0, -5, -10 from 2, 1, 0, -1, -2.
- The position modifier has been changed to -10% from -2%.
New Additions
- Fighting is now in the game. The winner of the fight will earn their team with a momentum boost.
- Momentum will degrade over time and will only apply to Passing or Skating logic. Momentum will not affect scoring chances. It is there to improve the opportunity
to provide the chance to score not award a scoring modifier.
- One-timers are now in the game. One-timers may only occur if the player shoots the puck immediately after receiving a pass and if they are in the offensive zone.
- A modifier will be applied based on the lateral location of the player and their Hand. This lays the ground work for future enhancements.
- Players will now select a spot to shoot at (glove, blocker, five-hole, etc). The play by play will reflect this.
- Goaltender saves will now vary in one of four categories: Amazing, Great, Good, Easy. The play by play has been updated to reflect this.
- Players can now flub shots. The play by play has been updated to reflect this.
Play by Play Changes
- There have been a number of new play by play blurbs added for Passing and Skating actions.
- Players blocking shots will now appear in the play by play.
- Goaltender changes or Extra Attackers will now appear in the play by play.
- Players returning from a penalty will now appear in the play by play.
- Less technical / debugging play by plays for when a shift change occurs.
- Player injuries will now appear in the play by play.
- Added 25 new play by play messages for deke attempts.
- Added 25 new play by play messages for slapshots.
- Added 10 new play by play messages for tips / deflections.
- Added 30 new play by play messages for one-timers.
- Added 232 new play by play messages for goalie saves.
Miscellaneous
- The elapsed time will now change to coincide with a player returning from a penalty if it was going to exceed that point.
- The last 90 seconds of every period will now have more action.
- Penalties will no longer be handed out to only the puck carrier. Any person on the ice can get a penalty.
- Lines can now change after a goal has been scored even if they have been on for less than 30 seconds.
Cron Jobs
We have made a number of changes to reduce the amount of overhead on each page load. Prior to our move we had limited access to the resources of the host we were on
and had to handle a LOT of the day-to-day processing work each time a page was loaded. This led to longer and longer page load times as UHS became increasingly
complex. At our new host we have pretty much complete control over what is accessing our server and mysql loads. We previously moved some of the page overhead
into cron jobs and we are going to continue along that road until we can get page loads down to a reasonable time.
The Auto-GM scripts are now cron jobs. It will run once a minute. I may increase this, depending on run-time and demand. The AutoGM does a LOT of stuff... this
was a major contributor to COM's excessive page load times.
On the COM home page we had a game roster check and custom line check for every team. For leagues with even 10 teams this was a noticeable delay to getting the page
loaded. We have changed this to be run via cron job.
As a quality of life enhancement, we have added a cron job to handle live game statistics updates. COMs no longer need to manually run a script after the live games
have been completed. Instead, the cron job will run once every 5 minutes and update any live game that is an hour old. On average a live game should run for an
hour (less now when you read below). For example, games scheduled for 7pm will now have their stats updated automatically at 8pm or 8:05pm.
Other Changes
- Shoot Outs are now available. COMs now have two new Overtime modes: 1 Overtime then Shootout or No Overtime, Straight to Shootout.
- The live game viewer has been updated to show shoot-out scores only if the league has chosen shoot-out as an overtime type.
- All stats pages have been updated to reflect shoot-outs if the league has chosen shoot-out as their overtime type.
- The play-by-play frequency for live games has been changed to 4 seconds down from 5. This was done to speed up live games slightly. 5 seconds seemed a bit too long.
- The AutoGM will no longer fix rosters during the Off-Season if the Entry Draft has not been completed. This is done to prevent the AutoGM from purchasing a ton of
makeweights before the draft had been completed.
- The AutoGM will now use the league's maximum ticket price instead of the league average. Using the league average lead to some wonky ticket prices in a league where
only AutoGMs were being used.
[BUG FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where icings called would not process properly.
- Fixed a bug where an away team losing a playoff series will still have their wins bolded in the preliminary round stats page.
- Fixed a bug where the visiting team will ice it's even strength line at the start of a period even though it is supposed to be short-handed.
- Fixed a bug where the pro team name will not appear for GMs when looking at their Personnel.
- Fixed a bug where Around the League would display errors if there were no games available.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM would not offer new contracts to some players. This would eventually result in an infinite loop scenario that would hang UHS. Released
on April 14 2011.
- Fixed an issue where swapping farm lines would take the user to the pro lines page. Released on April 14 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a GM would not be able to set their prospect investing amount. Released on April 19 2011.
- Fixed an issue where click on a different season type when viewing a coach's profile would return an error. Released on April 19 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the prospect scouting investment was being shown incorrectly. Released on April 21 2011.
- Fixed an issue where purchasing a makeweight for a farm team using Buy Makeweight would result in errors when updating the Ledger. Released on May 19 2011.
- Fixed an issue where rookie goaltenders were not being denoted in Team Stats. Released on May 19 2011.
- Fixed an issue where moving a farm team would result in errors. Released on June 5 2011.
- Fixed an issue where GMs were unable to purchase new arena seats. Released on June 6 2011.
- Fixed an issue where saving a player edit would sometimes result in an error. Released on June 7 2011.
- Fixed an issue where GMs could not move players to the pro team during the offseason. Released on June 7 2011.
BUILD 2659 - April 9 2011
Save Points Have Changed
We have been forced to change how we think about and handle save points. Here are the details:
- All SavePoint load or save actions will now generate a request for action which is stored in our databases.
- Every few minutes a job will run to determine what requests have yet to be processed.
- Your league will be able to have only one load or save request active at any given time.
- If you have a load/save request active your GMs will not be able to log into UHS. This lock will be automatically reset once the load/save request has been fulfilled.
- As a COM you will be able to view the status of your load/save request in the Save Point Management area.
- As a COM you will not be locked out while your load/save request remains outstanding. It is extremely advisable that you do not make any changes to your league until your
load/save requests have been fulfilled as you WILL lose data.
- If you have an outstanding load/save request you will not be able to reset your league, load a save point or create a new save point. Those functions will return once your
request has been fulfilled.
Miscellaneous Changes
- Defunct teams will no longer have their rosters or lines checked in the COM's Team Management tool.
- When a league moves into the Playoffs the Schedule Management option has been renamed "Playoffs". The submenu has been removed as well.
- Double Minor penalties will not longer appear as DblMinor in a live game play by play.
- Playoff Series schedules will now populate a game date based on playing a game every day.
[BUG FIXES]
- Users will no longer get an error when attempting to save a communication in League Settings that contains an apostrophe.
- Errors should no longer appear at the top of the screen if an auto-gm team is the only team allowed to make a waiver claim.
- Errors should no longer appear at the top of the screen when an auto-gm team attempts to set their ticket price immediately after a season change.
- Fixed a bug where an error would appear for some coach stats when viewing the coach's profile.
- Fixed a bug where a team's streak would not be updated if the result came in overtime.
- Fixed a bug where an all-star goalie would not have their stats updated if they were substituted during the game.
- Fixed a bug where selecting the Last Page image in the Coach Management list would result in an empty result.
- Fixed a bug where the a player appearing in the Team Scouting report could show a coach's scouting report instead of the player's scouting report.
- Fixed a bug where an AutoGM creating a Makeweight player would result in an error shown at the top of the screen.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where UHS chat screens were not appearing properly. Released on March 20 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the submenu for GM Entry Draft was not appearing properly. Released on March 20 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the All-Star game link was not appearing in the news/alerts section. Released on March 20 2011.
- Fixed an issue where players could refuse to sign during an inaugural draft. This feature was meant for regular entry drafts for junior players.
Released on March 20 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the All-Star game link would continually repeat itself. Released on March 21 2011.
- Fixed an issue where users were unable to reset their passwords. Released on March 21 2011.
- Fixed an issue where players drafted by the GM would not get automatically scouted. Released on March 24 2011.
- Fixed an issue where coaches were able to get a 10 in a skill. This affected scouting report accuracy and meant that the particular skill would not
be applied to players during a game. Released on March 24 2011.
- Fixed a bug where icing could be negated after a shot on an empty net. Released March 24 2011.
- Fixed a bug where a goalie could opt to skate while the opposing net was empty. Released March 24 2011.
- Fixed a bug where coaches were able to be created with a skill of 10. Released on March 25 2011.
- Added a check on saving coach edits so that any skills outside of the 1-9 range will automatically be brought back to 1 or 9. Released on March 25 2011.
- Fixed a bug where leagues created after build 2570 was released would have problems setting columns to display in their standings. Released on March 28 2011.
- Fixed a UHS IM communication issue. Released on March 30 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the AutoGM could cause UHS to hang if a team did not have a farm team assigned. Released on March 30 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a team losing players to waivers may not get recorded properly. Released on March 31 2011.
- Fixed an issue where deleting coaches would not remove them from the free agency screen (allowing GMs to view them). Released on April 3 2011.
- Fixed an issue where adding a team would only add 25 picks for the inaugural draft instead of using the number of rounds set by the COM. Released on April 3 2011.
- Fixed a bug where the Team Options submenu would not load any team. Released on April 8 2011.
- Fixed a bug where playoff game creation would miss away games if the series length did not match the maximum playoff length set in League Settings. Released on April 9 2011.
BUILD 2570 - March 20 2011
We've Moved to a new Host
As you may have noticed, UHS has been offline since late Thursday night. This was due to a technical limitation on our previous host. Their solution was for us to upgrade to a
ridiculously priced dedicated server. Being on a shared server had it's benefits but also its negatives.
Through the move I have tried to be as transparent as possible by keeping status updates coming on our twitter account HockeySimCA.
The move came at a bad time as I was in the middle of testing out new passing logic: the new logic will modify a base 50% success chance vs a direct competition player v player.
While I think the new passing code is fairly decent, I'd prefer to make sure there are no problems before releasing it. And to release it with the move would have been the
easy thing to do.
I sincerely appreciate everyone's patience through the move. It was difficult for me as well as I'd constantly want to be checking out my own team's status in UHS (go
Thunder Bay!).
Player Profile Updates
- If a player has been traded, a link to the Trade ID will now appear in their movement history. This applies only to trades going forward and does not apply retroactively for
old trades.
- Players that are restricted free agents will now show the team that owns their rights beside the Restricted text.
- The player silhouette image will no longer be squished on some player profile pages.
- When player skills are shown the text will no longer be tiny.
- If you own the player you are viewing, you will now see a drop-down list of available actions.
- We have also added a line in the profile that will show you the current rerate potential for the player. This potential is based on the stats the player currently has and what
would happen if the league stopped right now. If the player does not have enough games to qualify for a rerate in either their current season or previous season the potential
will be "Not Applicable". In these cases there is a very slight chance the player will rerate down (10% per skill). The rerate advisor will not make projections.
New Settings
- COMs now have the ability to toggle player retirements on or off. If turned off, players will only be able to retire if they succumb to a career-ending injury.
- COMs also have the ability to toggle whether the Ties, OTW, OTL, SOW, SOL columns are shown in the league standings. Going forward Regulation Wins or Losses will only be
incremented if the number of points you set for OT Wins or Losses are equal. The toggles can be found in the League Settings / Series & Standings section. The toggles
will also be applied to your league's public website standings.
Example: a team earns two points for a regular win or an overtime win. If a team wins in OT, both the W and OTW will be incremented.
Example 2: a team earns a point if they lose in overtime but earns nothing if they lose in regulation. In this case, if the team wins in OT, their OTL column will be
incremented and their L column will not change.
- COMs now have the ability to select a new overtime type: No Overtime. The game will be over at the end of the third period regardless if the score is tied.
Please note: In order to see some of the changes in your website, you will need to refresh your Web Template. You can do this by logging into UHS as Owner or COM for your
league. Click Web Template in the menu. Click the button Install / Update Standard Template. Doing this will wipe out any custom changes you've made in favour of the
newly updated template.
SIM Engine Changes
- If the opposing team gains possession of the puck immediately after a shot, they will receive a buff to take another shot. If any other action is taken immediately
following the rebound the buff will be negated. This buff will not apply to the scoring logic; it is only to encourage the frequency of shots after a rebound.
- Shooting for an empty net will now be a bit easier. Previously we adapted the complex shooting logic to the empty net shot, however, now we are using a flat percentage
based on the location of the puck. This should result in more empty net goals.
- When players are on a breakaway, the same penalty shot logic will be used instead of a bonus being applied to their breakaway shot.
- There is now a 20% chance on each blocked shot that the puck will be deflected into the stands.
[BUG FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where an error would appear when saving after performing an edit on a player.
- Fixed an issue where the scouting investment options were over-inflated. Teams would still be charged the amount as set by the COM, however, in the selection screen
they were increased by a factor of 1 million.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where the new cron job would not run for all leagues. Released on March 6 2011.
- Fixed an issue where new leagues would not have their names appear on their league websites. Released on March 6 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the farm and junior rosters would attempt to set even if there were not enough players. Released on March 6 2011.
- Fixed an issue where assigning a team when creating a new arena would result in an error. Released on March 8 2011.
- Fixed an issue where a user could create a duplicate user name from another league. Released on March 9 2011.
- Fixed an issue where an inaugural draft would not go beyond 25 rounds. Released on March 9 2011.
- Additional fixes applied for inaugural drafts going beyond 25 rounds. Released on March 10 2011.
- Fixed a bug where players with apostrophes in their names would not get saved to game details tables and would result in goals missing. The player stats were not
affected, only the game reports, summaries and live games. Released on March 10 2011.
- Fixed a bug where over time points were over-riding regulation points when games were being simmed in Regular Mode. Released on March 10 2011.
- Made tweaks to numeroud pages / scripts due to the move to our new host. Released on March 19 2011.
BUILD 2414 - March 6 2011
Head to Head Games
Commissioners now have the ability to simulate any two pro level teams in a head-to-head matchup. Game results will not be stored as the game will be done in
demo-mode. This feature is not available during the Off-Season.
Retired Players Check
When a season changes from Playoff to Off-Season, a check is made on all retired players. If a retired player does not have any stats, he will be deleted from
the system to help conserve memory in the db.
SIM Engine Changes
When players receive game penalties or injuries they used to be randomly replaced. Now the simulator will check the player's position makes an attempt at replacing
him with a player in the same position. If that fails, one attempt will be made to check for a replacement amongst all the forwards (forwards only). If that fails,
the simulator will select a random player from the entire roster.
Cron Job Has Been Added
In order to make sure UHS would run smoothly we added a "small" script that would run before each page loaded. This meant that free agents being signed would appear
on their new teams almost instantaneously. As we continued to improve the sim and add new features it became necessary to add more and more things to this script...
which meant that a LOT of stuff was happening behind the scenes every time you went to a different page.
We've changed that. We built a lot of the stuff into other scripts so checks would not be needed and moved the rest into a cron job. The job will run every fifteen
minutes on the quarter hour... so 12:00, 12:15, 12:30, 12:45, etc.. The job will run through one league at a time and go through any necessary actions... so you
may find that a particular action may not happen right on the quarter-hour, however, it should not be much longer than 2-3 minutes (for now). As we add more leagues
and leagues grow in size this number could increase. We will be monitoring the run times to see if there are any concerning slow downs.
Here are a list of the items that are affected by the cron job change: Coach & Player Free Agent Signings, Waivers, Trade Deadline Voids, 19-year olds Moving to Pro
from Junior After the Entry Draft, Player & Coach Conversions to Free Agents, Juniors Refusing to Sign Moved Back to Junior, Farm Team Roster Set, Junior Team
Roster Set, Shoot-Out Error Checks.
COMs: In the cases of deadlines (like trade or free agency) it's probably best to set your deadlines to coincide with a quarter-hour mark.
All-Star Selections
There have been some modifications made to the All-Star drafter and how game rosters are created. When selecting a player to an all-star team, that player will now
show up with a red cross image after their name. This signifies the player is either injured or suspended and will not participate in the game. When the game
roster is created, the all-star team will now ignore any injured or suspended players that may have been named to the team.
The COM's UI to start the all-star game has also been updated to use the new style applied in the previous build.
[BUG FIXES]
- Removed a debug screen print for Chem when creating a player in the COM Player Management section.
- Fixed an issue where the Makeweight Drafter would suggest makeweights for defunct teams.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where making changes in the COM General Settings section resulted in an error. Released on February 21 2011.
- Fixed an issue where adding a pro conference didn't do anything. Released on February 21 2011.
- COMs will no longer see player total skills on the COM Player Management home page if player skills are set to hidden for the league. Released on February 21 2011.
- Fixed a syntax error preventing games from being simmed. Released on February 21 2011.
- Fixed a rerate bug where a player could randomly rerate down if their Previous Season GP was less than 10 (2 seasons ago). The random rerate-down code will now
only function if they did not play at least 10 games in last season. Released on February 25 2011.
- Fixed a bug where a coach might not be assigned to the correct team when a COM uses the Assign Coach tool. Released on February 26 2011.
BUILD 2283 - February 21 2011
Commissioners Have a New Look
The new style that had previously been applied for GM views has now been applied for COMs. As with the GM changes there were some changes made to the
layout and functionality of the COM Tools code.
Account Management (COM)
- The Reset Password function is now available as an icon on each user's row.
- The Add Account function is now available through a clickable button at the bottom of the user list.
- The Assign to Team icon is no longer available for COM or Asst.COM users.
League Settings (COM)
Arenas
- Adding new Arenas is now accessible by clicking the Add New Arena button at the bottom of the Arenas list.
- The Set Default icon will no longer prompt you if you're sure. Clicking this will set this as the arena to be used by all teams.
- The Delete Arena icon will no longer take you to a new page. A javascript prompt will now appear. Clicking OK or Yes will delete the arena immediately.
- When an arena is set as default only teams that did not have an arena set or were using the previous default arena will be updated to use the new default arena.
- The column header "Upg.Rem" was changed to "Upgrades" as it shows the number of seats the arena has been upgraded by.
General
- When changing the Max Ticket Price to a value lower than 0, the price will no longer change to 100. The price will remain the same as it was prior to the change.
Other Changes
- Settings that were basically yes/no or 1/0 options have now been replaced with drop-down with appropriate verbage.
Player Management (COM)
- The main page for Player Management has been completely redesigned to incorporate many of the submenu items in an easier-to-use layout. In most cases, we suggest
COMs make use of the Search function instead of using the first/prev/next/last buttons. It will make your life a lot easier.
- The Edit, Retire, Delete, Assign to Team, Add Player, Import NHL Player and Delete All Players functions have been moved to the main page.
- The Player Report submenu item can now be found on the main page under Player Statistics.
- COMs will now be able to see the player skills when Editing a Player regardless of whether Show Skills is on or off.
- The Delete button will only appear for players that have never played a single game.
- The Delete All button will only appear if you are at Season 1 - OffSeason. Typically you should never be deleting all players after that point otherwise you will
be destroying your data integrity.
- The Create Player functionality has been merged with the Add Player, Add Multiple Player and NHL Player Import functions.
- Added drop-downs for the majority of attributes when creating a player to ensure data integrity.
- The Hall of Fame has been updated to allow you to add or remove players from the Hall of Fame.
- The Coach tools have been moved to it's own section.
Coach Management (COM)
- The coach tools have been removed from the Player Management section and can be found as a link on the COM Menu.
- The coach tools are based on the style/layout/functionality of the new Player Management section.
Team Management (COM)
- The main page will show a list of all teams with any applicable actions available for them.
- The GR and CL green/red light buttons are moved into the Actions cell as "GR" and "CL" respectively. Clicking on either of these will reset the roster or custom lines
for that team.
- The Ledger tool has been removed from the submenu and is now available through clicking the ledger icon for that particular team.
- The AutoGRCL link has been moved to the bottom of the table and appears as the button "Auto-Correct All Rosters & Lines".
- You are now able to delete teams that have not played in a single game.
- COMs now have the ability to Delete All Teams as long as they are in the OffSeason of Season 1.
- The All-Star Drafter is now available as long as you have at least one all-star team created.
Entry / Inaugural Draft
- The COM now has the ability to make a pick on behalf of a team even if the GM has a draft list set.
Makweight Drafter
- The makeweight drafter will now only consider players that are on the same level as the team. This impacts more of the pro and farm teams as opposed to the juniors.
Previously if a farm team was short a player but there was an extra player on the pro team, the makeweight drafter would not create a new player. Now, however,
since the drafter is only looking at the farm team an extra player will be created regardless of whether there is a suitable replacement on the pro. This will make
things easier for a future development to create "unlimited" leagues instead of the static pro/farm/junior setup we have now.
- The makeweight drafter will ignore any players needed for the farm team unless it is the regular season or playoffs.
League Structure (COM)
- The league structure section has been removed from the schedule management section. You will find it in the COM Menu with three submenu links to Pro, Farm and Junior.
- Your Pro and Farm league structures are no longer dependent on each other. Pro and Farm leagues no longer need to have the same structural setup. Similarly, farm teams
no longer need to be in the equivalent pro division.
Schedule Generator (COM)
- The league conference structure tools have been removed from the schedule generator.
- The Pro, Farm and Junior leagues all have their own schedule generation section.
- Pro and Farm schedules are no longer generated together. A COM must generate the pro, farm and junior pre-season and regular season schedules.... yes... this means it is
possible to have a farm pre-season now.
- The generator logic has been tweaked to randomly swap smaller game days (typically at the end of a season) with larger game days through-out the season. This means that
your seasons should always start and end with large game days.
Com Home page
- The lock buttons have now had their colours reversed. If the league is unlocked, the lock button will appear red... indicating you must click the button to lock the
league. If the league is locked, the lock button will appear blue... indicating you must click the button to unlock the league. Additionally when a league is locked
a "League Locked" message will appear at the top of the screen in bold red... you can't miss it.
Season Changes (COM)
When performing a season change the question / alerts now appear as a checklist. You will either see a question or a red stop sign.
- Red Stop: These items are highly recommended to address before continuing on with the season change.
- Question: These items are here to remind you about certain actions that should be done before the season changes.
- Are You Sure? When you click the Increase Season button, you will now see a pop-up asking if you are sure. Clicking OK or Yes will start the season change process.
In the old version clicking the button would take you to another screen asking if you were really sure. The pop-up eliminates the use for the extra screen.
When changing from PlayOff to OffSeason, the line-by-line updates will no longer appear for player retirements and skill rerates. Previously this was shown to ensure
the code was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. However, we have seen larger and larger run-times as a league grows... removing the display / update
of the page should drastically reduce this run-time. Leagues will still be able to see who has retired in the Activity Report.
[BUG FIXES]
Account Management (COM)
- Fixed an issue where the Team Assignment hidden row would be misaligned when shown.
- The Assign to Team icon will no longer appear for users that are not a GM or Assistant GM.
Player Protection
- The list of available players to protect was based on age 22 and not the MaxAgeProtected that can be set by the COM.
Free Agency
- Fixed an issue where COMs were able to see the Make Offer button if the free agent didn't have any offers.
- Players selected in the Expansion Draft, specifically Restricted Free Agents, will now have their rights change to the expansion team.
- When a team accepts compensation for RFAs, the player's movement history will now correctly show the player being signed by the new team instead of the old team.
Inaugural Drafts
- Fixed an issue where the inaugural draft would only allow a team to go to 25 rounds regardless of what the COM specifies in League Settings.
Player Rerates
- Fixed an issue where goaltenders playing under 10 games could see their CH and SH skill decreased, adversely affecting their Total, even though they do not use those skills.
Around the League
- When live games were run and a game was not yet processed or not complete (Pending update), the Instant Replay text would appear which made the live game viewer use the
incorrect tables. If a game is not complete or is pending, the viewer will be taken to the correct Live Game tables. The Instant Replay text should only appear if the
game has been completed and stats have been updated.
- In brand new leagues errors were shown since there were no games played. This has been fixed so that a "No Games" text will appear.
AutoGMs
- Fixed an issue where the trade checker was still being run even if there were no teams present. This would result in the warning for line 843 issue.
- Fixed an issue where players returning from injury or suspension were not being reinserted into the game roster unless the roster had an error with.
- The Entry Drafter will now select a player based on skill point average... The player's skill divided by 11 (skaters) or 9 (goalies).
- Fixed an issue where an average ticket price could not be determined.
Sim Changes
- Fixed a bug where a face-off was not happening if a Game or Game/Major penalty was called after an injury. This also resulted negative shots and false assists.
- Fixed a bug where a blocked shot roll would take place even if the player was on a breakaway... even if the block succeeded the breakaway would still happen, however,
it would still appear in the debug file.
- Fixed a bug where all the puck carrier fields would not get reset if a defender successfully stripped a player of the puck during a breakaway.
- Fixed an issue where the face-off location would not change when a penalty was called. Face-offs after penalties will now be held in the appropriate location depending
on where the puck was and who took the penalty.
- Fixed an issue where a playerid = 0 would be considered a real player. This caused ghost-player issues occasionally.
Player Contract Minimum Offers
We have changed the minimum offer for player contracts from 50% to 75% of their previous contract value. This was done to sync with the minimum value required to qualify
a potential restricted free agent.
Hold Outs & Expansion/Distribution Drafts
Players selected via Distribution or Expansion draft will now have their Hold Out status reset allowing their new team to make them an offer. Please note their RFA status
will not change. If they were an RFA prior to selection they will remain that after selection.
[HOT FIXES]
- Fixed an issue where the goal tally was not being updated during a live game or instant replay. Released on October 30 2010.
- Fixed an issue where new leagues did not have the ability to change the number of rounds in the inaugural draft. Released January 9 2011.
- Fixed an issue where schedules were not being set up properly for inter- and intra-conference play. Released January 10 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the coach signing factor would always be 0 if the coach had never been hired. Released January 22 2011.
- Fixed an issue where new leagues were missing the StreakGames column in Players. This resulted in errors after a sim. Released January 22 2011.
- Fixed an issue where expansion teams would not be added to the priority list until they have played at least one regular season game. Released January 28 2011.
- Fixed an issue where teams that still had priority could not make a claim if another team had already made a claim. Released January 29 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the Move to Farm action was not being shown even if the player met the auto-protection age. Released February 4 2011.
- Fixed an issue where the Move to Farm processing logic was not considering if the player met the auto-protection age when being moved to the farm. Released February 5 2011.
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