So far, I only really have a few complaints, and they are all fairly minor:
- I don't personally care for the goalie cards on the "Play Game" screen - they don't give me any information, and it used to be a bit easier to immediately tell whether I had won or lost that game (I exclusively sim day-to-day and always sim games). I would like the option to turn those off and revert to the older (FHM6) screen.
- I do still see teams that are letting quality prospects to go free agency, and I find myself manually adding them to their teams. I have not seen NCAA players play all four years in college and go to free agency as a matter of course, which did happen a lot in previous versions, so I can say that I am pleased about that. I suspect teams are unable to offer contracts because they're at their limit, or no longer have budget space available for the current season, though neither should realistically be an issue.
- I'm not sure if it's too easy to draft and develop players right now - I'm not far enough into my game yet - but just a couple of years in, I'm playing 2.5/5.0 prospects in the AHL because I simply don't have enough room for them in the NHL (I'm already playing five forwards, a defenseman, and a goalie on their ELCs, plus two guys on their first standard contracts, and they're all among my best players already).
Maybe this is a temporary fluke, maybe this is me drafting and trading too well to start (and I am spending the max on player development), but I guess I'm just complaining that it's been too easy for me to draft and develop high-quality prospects in this version and the last. It's possible that I should manipulate the percentage of skills derived from stats - I've never messed with this.
- Finally, non-established players coming off their ELCs are demanding too much money. A 22-23 year old player who has never played in the NHL, or has had but a cup of coffee, should not be demanding $1.2 million over three years, regardless of their stars rating. Those players tend to sign 1-2 year deals for league minimum (maybe with a nice boost in AHL salary, of course). Similarly, players who have stuck in the NHL for a bit, but haven't really established themselves yet (say Noah Gregor), typically get more in the $750-950k range. I guess I'd like some kind of check or override that looks at a player's NHL experience when coming off an ELC and overrides their demands to some extent. Again, this is fairly minor - if you're asking for that much and aren't worth starting yet, I let you go and sign someone on the free agent market - but I'd like to keep it closer to reality in this regard automatically.
Overall, I'm having a good time. I'll leave this here:
What a monstrous season.