HLMX - An HLM25 Database & Story

[BKarchitect]

Hi folks! Some of you that frequent this forum my recognize me from the EHM threads over the years where I have been a contributor to the editing and pontification of that epic game for over a decade.

Around a year ago I found out about Hockey Legacy Manager (HLM) - a hockey GM sim that had been around a few years. It started off very simply, but the developer has been gradually adding features and it's a pretty damn cool game. Available for both mobile and Steam on your computer.

This thread is going to serve as a partial plug for the game to get more folks interested in it and as a platform to show off some features of the HLMX database I have had in development since I discovered the game. Essentially, I spent the entire life cycle of HLM24 learning how to edit, how the sim works, and developing a robust backdrop to launch some customized rosters - HLMX.

It is not yet publicly available for download but if you PM me I can send you a beta to test out. These rosters do not have a historical backdrop (they are meant for play from the 24-25 season onward) and I am still fleshing out some items (historical data for records, full NHL staffs) - but in terms of current rosters, international rosters, an intense focus on real prospects and completely from scratch graphics and team colors...I'm very happy with how things are turning out.

If you have any question on HLM, on editing in HLM or on settings, options and how things work in the game - feel free to post here as well.

Click to read more...

 

[BKarchitect]

STARTING A CAREER

My first decision is whether to start my career in Classic Mode - which is a standard 32-team NHL setup or Expansion Mode where I can choose to add any number of expansion teams to the NHL, followed by an expansion draft (WHICH THE GAME MAKES INTO A REALLY COOL EXPANSION DRAFT EVENT, COMPLETE WITH PROTECTED & AVAILABLE PLAYERS!!!).

I'm going to choose Classic Mode - but here's the thing - even in Classic Mode, you can choose to have NHL expansion in future years, complete with expansion drafts that will reflect the players and contracts at the date of the expansion. You can expand (or contract) the league as much as you want as you move your career along!

As I head to the Team Selection screen - I can pick my team to control. But, before I do so, I can select on any team and "replace it" with another team identity in the game. For the HLMX database, I have baked in dozens and dozens of options here, complete with full graphics, jerseys, logos and colors. When you replace a team at this screen, if simply changes the identity and graphics.

For example...Utah Hockey Club is Utah team in the NHL and in HLMX. But I have baked in several different identities that I can replace this generic name with:

For this career, I am going to swap Utah Hockey Club out and make them the "Utah Yeti". They will maintain all the current info (roster, prosecpts, picks, history) of Utah Hockey Club.

You can swap out teams to your hearts content. Many of the team options are meant for expansion teams and expansion team AHL/ECHL affiliates - but you can choose to use them however you want. You can create an entire division where the teams are all based in Europe, for example.

Also, every NHL team has at least one alternate identity (jerseys, logos, colors) that you can swap the standard identity out for. Many are retro or retro "reverse" based. You could if you wanted swap all 32 NHL teams out for alternate versions of their identity to give your game a fresh look.

I am going to take control of Columbus in this sim. With all the terrible and tragic juju around this franchise, let's switch their usual look out for the vintage looking "Cannon" look and then start our game:

 

[BKarchitect]

Alrighty. Time to see what I am working with. I know this job won't be easy. Let's take a look at the organizational depth chart:

You have to play the game a bit to get used to what the ratings mean...and with different roster sets they may mean slightly different things. The HLM website has a guide but I consider it a pretty loose guide, since I have really toyed around with the entire structure of the database.

Loosely...above 90 makes you a star, high 80's and you are a frontline player, mid 80's and you are a good middle of the line-up stalwart, low 80's a solid regular and high 70's would be a low-end or depth player in my HLMX roster set.

Up front I'm really feeling the absence of Johnny (rest in peace, brother). I'm hurting at LW for sure. Good depth up the middle and right side looks ok if the Russians continue to grow. I may have a decision to make with Lindstrom - if he can improve during camp, maybe he can make the team, but he probably needs another year in junior.

On the blueline - Weresnki is by far my star player. Depth isn't too bad. Hoping Jiricek can take the next step and while Mateychuk probably needs to start in the AHL, he is close and could be a guy who is ready by mid-season to bump Harris out of the starting 6 or if I deal Provorov.

In net, Merzlikins is marginally my starter over Tarasov but it is close. I'd love to dump Merzlikins' contract but that is going to be hard. Greaves has sneaky potential in the AHL and Ivanov is by far my best younger prospect. He should be killer in the KHL this year.

I can turn my depth chart to "Potential" to get a better understanding of the age and potentials of my system:

In HLM parlance, the stars and colors are coded to different levels. Instead of stars you can also choose to have potential displayed as a "catagory"...but because I view the catagories as very loosely defined, the stars just seem cleaner and less specific to me. Basically - more stars the better potential.

For colors...
GRAY = Aged past where potential matters (this does NOT mean their rating won't change or can't go up).
BLUE = A really sure bet to meet their potential
GREEN = A very good bet to meet their potential
YELLOW = A modest bet to meet their potential
RED = A low bet to meet their potential
DARK RED = A very low bet to meet their potential

In the HLM guidelines - the colors are given a specific %. But because I play with the BALANCED PROSPECT GENERATION option on (it keeps the relative ratings curve for the game the same year to year) - for me the actual % doesn't mean much.

So...for example, a guy rated 4.5 stars and blue like Fantilli is pretty certain to become a star. Jordan Dumais is 4.0 stars and red which means he's got good upside, maybe top-6...but he's pretty unlikely to meet it in any given game/career.

This is how the game looks with the stars swapped out for the descriptions...but again, I just find the stars less constrictive in terms of how I view a player:

 

[BKarchitect]

One thing I want to do right off the bat is set up some future expansion for the league. In my NHL, we are going to expand to 36 teams. Two teams will be added in consecutive years.

If I go to League Settings, I can start to plan for this. Now if you start a Classic Mode game and decide to expand, that puts the first expansion draft at June 2026 so the new teams will join in 26-27. This gives a realistic timetable for expansion announcement and planning.

So for the first round, I'm going to add the Atlanta Thrashers and Arizona Coyotes for the 26-27 season. When you select the NHL expansion teams you will also be prompted to select their AHL and ECHL affiliates. For Atlanta, I brought back the Detroit Vipers for the AHL and the Quad City Mallards for the ECHL. For Arizona, I'm adding the Sacramento Pumas in the AHL and Reno Wolfpack in the ECHL.

These are all identities complete with jerseys, logos, etc available in NHLX

When the expansion happens, I'll have to worry about who from my team is exposed and who to protect - but for my rebuilding Jackets, two summers from now is an eternity. I just need to keep it in the back of my mind!

 

[BKarchitect]

I think before I do anything, I want to see how my organization stacks up in the NHL hierarchy. There are a myriad of really cool league settings and rankings you can peruse at any point.

How about the overall strength of my roster. OOF. Not very good. At least I have a ton of cap space and am on the younger side overall!

Trade power is a fun one...it assesses the overall trade value of your franchise. Young players in their primes and top prospects count a lot of good. So do having a lot of good picks. Middling players with bad contracts count a lot of bad and if you traded all your picks, you will see it affect this ranking. As far as this goes...I'm not doing to shabby. I've got some bad contracts for sure (Merzlikins, Gudbranson, Severson) but definitely some valuable assets:

In terms of my prospect pool - things look solid. Lindstrom is a potential stud and Mateychuk and Brindley are my #2 and #3 prospects:

In terms of league prospect rankings (it ranks the Top 50) - I've got Lindstrom at #12 and Mateychuk at #18 with Brindley also maing the list at #38.

 

[BKarchitect]

If I go back to my OFFICE in the left column GUI - I can start to sim. HLM25 has a myriad of options available for what arrives in your inbox and what you are notified of...you can turn things down so you just get a quick simming experience. You can keep things restricted to items that involve your team only. Or you can turn everything on and be notified of an assortment of news items...signings, firings, waivers, injuries, milestones, international accolades and selections, etc:

Note: the AI GM's do like to sign a lot of their prospects to ELC's up front

 

[BKarchitect]

If I go to my STAFF section I can look at staff throughout the organization - NHL/AHL/ECHL and hire/fire as needed. You will see the cumulative effects your staff ratings have on each level. Keep an eye on things like DEV (development) especially at the AHL level as this can influence how your prospects develop.

Right now at the NHL level, I've got positives for defense and PK and a little for development but negatives for offense, PP and really bad for goalie. Which means I might want to look at how I can upgrade staff traits to produce better results in those areas.

I'll have a lot of good prospects in Cleveland this year, so the +1.7 development my AHL staff has (mostly due to Mike Eaves have a 20 for DEV) is a very good indicator.

Staff sometimes have and sometimes will develop "special abilities". For example, my HC, Dean Evason, is a Level II Communicator which gives the bonus seen below. He can continue to level up this trait or add new traits if he develops well as an HC:

The best staff (GMs, coaches, scouts) in the game will have lots of cool "abilities" or bonuses which definitely can effect team/franchise performance:

Side note: in HLMX, I have all 32 NHL GMs and HCs updated and rated how I like complete with special abilities but the rest of the staff is still a work-in-progress. As staff actually makes a big difference in this game, I would like to flesh that out well as I evolve the roster set.

 

[BKarchitect]

A few days into September and I get a notice a few of my players have been selected for the World Cup. While HLM doesn't have near the options of EHM in terms of international or tournament customization, it does have:

- World Cup: You can opt for every year or every four years, it is in the beginning of September before the season starts. There are two divisions with 10 teams each and promotion and demotion between divisions. It is a senior-level best-on-best tournament which includes NHL players.

- WJC: Just like in real life the WJC's happen each year in December/January. Same format as the World Cup with two divisions of ten teams each and promotion and demotion.

A country's international performance can graudally have an effect on the level of prospects they produce, which is a neat feature although I have yet to really dig into the overall impact of this over a long period.

You can't control any WJC teams but under SETTINGS, you can choose to control a World Cup team of your choosing.

One of the things I have baked into the HLMX roster set is a very robust real-life international selection of players for even the "minnow" nations like Great Britain, Poland, etc. WHile the goal of HLMX, and HLM in general - is much, much more NHL-centric than the vast array of options EHM has, I've made it a point to represent all international countries with real senior players and prospects (based on recent real World Championships, Olympic Qualifying and Junior tournament rosters)- even when they fall below the standards I use as a threshold for whether or not to create a player/prospect from a stronger nation. I really want to maintain a "real feel" to international rosters as many years into a sim as possible:

Of course your stronger nations at the World Cup will be a who's who of NHL stars...

 

[BKarchitect]

***BUG ALERT***

So...like all games, HLM25, especially in this early version - seems to have some bugs. I'll kind of post those in here as I go along.

One of the bugs I've noticed is that if you replace a team with another team in your game setup screen...the GM of the new team tends to go absolutely BONKERS with trades.

So, for this career, I replaced the look of Utah Hockey Club with Utah Yetis. For whatever reason, this seems to prompt the Yetis to go bat sh!t wild with trades before the first season. This does NOT happen if I just leave them as the "Utah Hockey Club". And it happens even though the finances, GM, coaching, roster, organization is all still exactly the same.

This bug happens with any team that I "replace" in the setup screen, even if I am just replacing the look/logos with a different version of the same team (not that it even matters since any replacement is supposedly purely graphical in nature).

Workarounds for right now?

1) Don't replace any of the Classic 32 teams until this bug is fixed.

2) Enjoy the absolute wild ride of a GM (or multiple GMs if you replace multiple teams) on meth cranking out trades like he's working for the Wolf of Wall Street if you "replace" that team in your game setup.

3) Play with COMMISSIONER MODE on in settings (you have to do this in the setup screen for your career) and then selectively turn off the AUTO AI for any of these teams (this will effectively mean they are neutered from making moves and let's you control what they do as long as the toggle it turned off), at least temporarily...it may be this only happens the first year at the beginning of the year...or it may cause coked out GMs for the entire game. I haven't figured that out yet.

I'll let the developer know of this bug

Uhhh....chill the frick out Bill Armstrong!!!!

 

[BKarchitect]

Since zombie Bill Armstrong decided to single-handedly put my lovingly crafted realistic roster into a blender, I've restarted the game with the same settings and put the Yeti on super-secret double probation - at least until the season opener - to see if that calms things down.

In the meantime - one of the other really fun features of HLM is that...well, like real humans, hockey players have families. You'll get a notice from time-to-time that a player's family has welcomed a newborn child! These off-spring will eventually possibly become hockey prospects and players down the road, although there is no guarantee they will be successful. There is howver a slider where you can control how much family genes influence a prospect to become good

Given his dad's role - I don't hold out huge hope that little Rex Olivier will be a scoring superstar when he is drafted in 2043...but you never know!

 

[DaBossN]

how do i place someone on waivers for purpose of buyout?
and how do I buy out

 

[BKarchitect]

how do i place someone on waivers for purpose of buyout?
and how do I buy out

You can only do it during the contract negotiation phase at the end of the season where you re-sign players.

In the screen where you are asked to offer new contracts (or not) to expiring players you will see two options:

- Expiring (the default screen for each of these days)
- Contracts

Contracts shows all contracts and if you click on a player whose deal still has term remaining, you will see an option to buy them out.

Took me a while to find this too! I don’t believe you can buyout players in the season, even after they’ve been waived.

 

[BKarchitect]

Continuing on with my test career here with Columbus, still in pre-season - made a couple of depth moves to shore up extra wing depth in case guys like Brindley aren't ready to stick on the team come opening night. Picked up Brock McGinn and then Joey Anderson. Warm bodies who can serve as extra forward and be waived themselves without much fuss.

I then did get a very interesting trade proposal from Edmonton - this is the HLM AI sending this to me, not something I instigated. But with Broberg out of the picture, the Oilers GM has realized they have a huge top 4 hole to fill in their defense. Provorov has appealed to them as he can play both sides and only has one year left on his deal, making him a cost-effective solution.

When you trade with the computer, GREEN means a player the other GM has high interest in on your team and when one of their players is RED in color, it means it's a player they are more than willing to move in the right deal. Don't mistake that color for VALUE, which is still established by the bars next to the player in the trade screen. It just means, fundamentally, a player or type of player they will move.

So Edmonton's GM has offered me recent late 1st rounder Sam O'Reilly and veteran bottom pairing defenseman Josh Brown for Provorov. Provorov is green because he is of high interest to them. O'Reilly is red not because the Oilers don't value him - but because they are in a "win now" mode and basically all their prospects are red, meaning philosophically, they are available for a move that helps the Oilers win now.

If I go in to negotiate, you can see how when sorted by value, a guy like O'Reilly (or Savoie) has significant value but are RED.

Meanwhile, if you scroll down, you'll eventually hit the players that are valued negatively. Like Kane and especially Nurse. They are both RED and have terrible negative value in the value bar. HLM does a pretty nice job of factoring contract size and length with player age and ability to create negative value players like in real life.

I will say sometimes the CPU GMs are way too eager to offload guys with even slightly negative value and will attach a ridiculous number of high picks and prospects to do so. I'm not talking Nurse-level bad contracts here (which obviously WOULD require a haul, like in real life, to offload).

Also pay attention to contract clauses - when you see a NMC, NTC or M-NTC next to a player and it is RED, it means that player will NOT waive to be a part of the deal. If it is GREEN, it is ok.

Needless to say, nobody on the Oilers with trade clauses is willing to waive to go from a Cup contender to a bottom feeder. Big shock!

 

[billbillbill]

Can you walk us through your recommended settings?

 

[BKarchitect]

Decided to tweak Edmonton's offer....I feel like with Mateychuk potentially being ready for NHL action at some point this year and Provorov a pending UFA next summer - cashing in and getting a late 1st prospect is the way to go. I was able to negotiate another ok prospect in the deal instead of Josh Brown who I had no use for:

If you go to your Team info screen, you can see a pretty nicely formatted summary for each franchise, including picks, recent trades, rivals and retired numbers. Really nice format here graphically...HLM's GUI can take a bit of getting used to but I think the screens are really well done:

Rivals can be manually inputted in the editor but the game will also assign regional rivals if there are none based on teams in the same league and geographical distances between the home cities of the teams.

 

[BKarchitect]

Moving players around your system is pretty straightforward - if the rosters are setup properly with correct player rights, certain player will have eligibility to be moved to juniors, college or Europe. For example, Nolan Lalonde still has his overage year of OHL eligibility left so I can send him there. You'll also get a reminder if a player is waiver eligible before you demote them, as you see with Sawchenko here.

Columbus is one of three NHL teams with no ECHL affiliate - so all of those teams have "made-up" ECHL affiliates so there is an even 32-32-32 NHL-AHL-ECHL affiliation pyramid.

Now, when you go back to the DEPTH CHART screen, you can see your organizational pyramid with levels - NHL/AHL/ECHL/Other Leagues:

 

[BKarchitect]

As I head into my first real game of the regular season (I toggle CPU control of my pre-season line-ups), it's time to set my lines.

You will notice in the graphics below that each line has a color bar next to it. The color bar represents the OFFENSIVE CHEMSITRY that line has. Do not make the mistake of interpreting it as overall strength of line. You may have a shutdown line or pair that has red next to it - that does not automatically the line is "bad" - just that it won't score a lot.

For line/pair offensive chemistry there is:
BLUE = Great
GREEN = Good
YELLOW = Ok
Red = Low
Dark Red = Very Poor

Sometimes playing a player out of position will negatively affect a line's offensive chemistry, so keep that in mind.

You can also set your goalie rotation starter/back-up frequency% here if you don't want to manually change your goalie out from game to game.

You can also set your PP/PK units. You'll want to pay attention more to a player's OFF/DEF splits here rather than their overall rating (when you swap a player out, it will show you the splits as shown below...in general the CPU will auto-populate special teams based on OFF/DEF abilities of your roster):

You also have the option of LOCKING any or all line combinations so that the CPU does not tweak certain things on its own (if you have auto-manage turned on for line-ups). Like maybe you have a lower rated but top-notch prospect you always want to be locked into a top-6 role for development purposes - it is easy to do this.

 

[BKarchitect]

When you SIM a game, the in-game play-by-play options and graphics will look very familiar to EHM users:

You can "watch" the entire game at variable speeds, edit lines in-game or if you are more concerned about the results than the "watching" part, simply SIM the game with a single click:

And...well how's that for a shitty season opener? The Islanders absolutely obliterate me 9-3 LOL.

You'll also se milestones for players in the game recap which is neat.

Overall - not a ton more I can say about the in-game experience, it'll feel familiar to users of other hockey GM games.

I will say for the GUI - some of the screens look "sparse" on desktop/Steam but this is due to the game being originally for mobile. Some info-packed screens are easier to see more info at once on desktop. But other screens look a bit more pleasing on mobile. They are both functionally solid. I had some graphical bugs in 2024 desktop version that seem to have been addressed.

 

[BKarchitect]

Now that the season has started, I'm going to turn back on ACTIVE AI for the other teams in the league in COMMISSIONER MODE. Remember, COMMISSIONER MODE does a couple things:
1) Let's you make roster moves and trades for any and all teams
2) Let's you turn ACTIVE AI on or off

TIP: You MUST turn COMMISISSIONER MODE on prior to starting a career/game. By default, the ACTIVE AI will be turned ON for all teams. This means CPU-controlled teams will make their own trades.

PRO TIP: The computer AI will often make a lot of stupid or just overwhelming number of trades right when you start a career, prior to the start of the season. Also, it will go nuts if you "replace" a team when you setup your career (see this post: Replace Team Trading Bug).

So, I like to turn ACTIVE AI OFF for all teams until the season starts. This lets you begin each season with a roster as close to what is intended as possible. Think of it as an ability to turn "pre-season trading" off between CPU-controlled teams. They will still however make you offers, and you can still make them offers. They will also still waive players and shape their rosters as need be, so turning off ACTIVE AI does NOT mean you have to manually control all the other teams.

You will have to remember to turn ACTIVE AI back on though for all the teams at some point if you want them to make their own-AI driven trade decisions...