Our seventh update for FHM2, version 2.7.53, has just been released. Your existing savegames will be compatible with the updated game, but any fixes involving the database updates in the update will require a new start to be fully effective, and some of the update's fixes may not retroactively correct certain problems in existing saves.

General notes: This will, barring any unforeseen serious problems that require a hotfix, be the last update for FHM2. We've tried to address as many high-priority/frequency requests as possible, but, inevitably, weren't able to get to everything. In some cases, particularly AI roster handling, we're running up into the limitations of the current AI designs. As we've indicated before, a complete replacement of the roster AI, which is built on some of the oldest code in the game, is going to be the major "under the hood" change in FHM3; once that's done, that'll give us a lot more flexibility to improve the realism in that area. As well, we've now got a long list of good suggestions for improving the game; while we didn't have time to implement as many of those as we'd have liked, they'll definitely play a role in what we decide to do with future versions.

We were able to make some changes, though: First, we've done what we can to address the issue of teams immediately releasing/trading players they've just acquired. It's not a perfect fix, but has made those situations much less likely to occur. We'll definitely be making a more permanent solution when we overhaul the roster AI in FHM3. Additionally, draft pick trading by the AI will now be more common; however, it still won't be quite as frequent, particularly for first-round picks, as it is in real life. We tried a setting to mimic that, but it led to some very undesirable AI behaviour, so we had to tone things down a little. But you should see much more AI trading of picks, particularly near the trading deadline and immediately prior to drafts.

Changes:
1. Teams will now be much less likely to trade or release players they've just signed or traded for; they may outright refuse to negotiate for these players when in trade talks with a human GM.
2. AI will now trade for draft picks more readily.
3. AI scouting will now use its scouts regional strengths more efficiently and tend to keep scouts in their "local" area unless its overall priorities exclude that area completely.
4. The AI Lineup assistant will no longer call players up on its own to fill out a roster, ignoring the Transactions/Roster Moves assistant settings.
5. NHL injury list minimum is now 7 days instead of 14, and the counter should correctly be set retroactive to the injury date.
6. Salary requests by young European players to their local leagues lowered considerably.
7. Valuation of players in transfer negotiations will now put a much higher emphasis on their potential, preventing high-potential young players from being bought very cheaply.
8. ECHL-FHL affiliations adjusted to prevent FHL rosters from being overwhelmed by ECHL-contracted players.
9. Power Play and Penalty Killing line AI has been adjusted to place less emphasis on using a forward on the point in the second PP unit and more emphasis on faceoff skills (as opposed to simply being able to play centre) on all PK units.
10. Potentials for roster-filling fictional low-level players at the start of the game adjusted to prevent them from being goood enough to inflate the quality of early NHL draft classes, since more real 2016-2020-eligible players have been added to the database as part of a large-scale review of draft prospects for those years; this should keep the draft pool quality at a reasonable level in that time period.
11. KHL draft has been adjusted to allow selection of players from all KHL nationalities; teams are also much more likely to select players of their own nationality (e.g. Latvians for Dynamo Riga, Finns for Jokerit, etc.)
12. Minimum KHL UFA age adjusted to 28.
13. Injuries.txt file updated to give more accurate injury location descriptions.
14. Scoring summaries in the centre of the game view expanded even more to accomodate longer names (previous change wasn't quite enough.)
15. Internal league ratings for WHL/OHL/QMJHL changed slightly so you should see more variation in the star ratings in the game while playing in those leagues (i.e., more 4+ star guys)
16. User team highlighting on the standings section of the GM home page adjusted to make it more visible to colourblind users.
17. When expanding a custom league, far fewer players will be exempt from the expansion draft (had been caused by a lack of league history).
18. Minimum KHL age adjusted to 17.
19. KHL teams should now be able to sign their draftees that are currently playing on under-18/20 teams, as well as players on those teams who have passed through a draft.
20. NHL budgets expanded slightly to
New Additions:
21. New historical dollar translation table implemented; based on new data, this should make salaries and payrolls in the 1970's through early 2000's closer to what they actually were in that era.
22. All league championships will now be noted in player histories for any players on the team's roster.
Bug Fixes:
23. Occasional reversal of divisional seeds in first round of modern NHL playoffs should no longer occur.
24. Fitness levels in the Lines screen should now properly reflect the actual fitness levels, e.g. as shown on the roster screen.
25. Clicking on team names in the standings section of the team home page should no longer open the page of a random NHL team.
26. The displayed numbers for coaching bonus points on the roster training screen will no longer change when filters are used on the roster (was cosmetic-only, the actual number used in training was still correct.)
27. Player happiness in WHL/OHL/QMJHL should no longer revert to lower levels immediately after winning the league championship and moving on to the Memorial Cup.
28. Memorial Cup games should now appear correctly on the Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow section of the interface.
29. Two-way contracts in the KHL should now be displayed correctly in the contract details pane.
30. Impending KHL restricted free agents should no longer become UFA's on contract expiration in some cases.
31. Historical arena names should now be displayed correctly in boxscores and in-game text.
32. Users in online leagues should now be able to buy out players without them being returned to the roster instead of being waived.
33. Players moving from junior leagues to KHL should no longer get continuous $1000 contracts in some circumstances.
34. Players should no longer occasionally be shown at 100% fitness on the roster screen while injured.
35. Sorting by Region in the free agents list of the personnel page should now work correctly.
36. The previous day's scores on the team home page should no longer become unclickable in some circumstances.
37. Closing a contract offer response from a player without choosing an option will no longer occasionally disable the negotiate and decline options.
38. WHL playoff seeding should now work correctly.
39. Tasks panel should no longer display upcoming junior draft messages twice.
40. Clicking on the "All-Star Games" button in League >> History in custom leagues with the NHL/AHL/CHL start will no longer result in a crash.
41. Occasional crash in November of historical games fixed.
42. Possible October crash when managing a team in the Finnish Liiga fixed.
43. Attempting to re-sign a player in historical leagues will no longer occasionally result in a response that claims another team has made a non-existent attempt to sign him as a restricted free agent.
44. Intermittent crash when clicking on Hall of Fame fixed.
45. Fixed an issue that could prevent the AI lineup assistant from making line adjustments at the start of a game.