Recent Discussions
NHL 23 Community Team of the Season
Hey, HUT Fans! Team of the Season is here and we'd like to give you all a say in which items receive a TOTS upgrade. We will be releasing the CTOTS items for North America, Europe, Young Stars and Women's teams. Voting will run from March 27th - April 3rd. The CTOTS will go live on April 6th. How do I participate? Hit the +XP button under the player you wish to vote for. The players with the highest XP totals will be chosen as the winners. Player votes will determine the following Top 4 NA players Top 4 EU players Top EU (overseas leagues) player Top 2 Young Stars players Top Women's Player North America Zach Hyman - F - Edmonton Oilers Mark Schiefele - F - Winnipeg Jets Kyle Connor - F - Winnipeg Jets Brady Tkachuk - F - Ottawa Senators Alex Tuch - F - Buffalo Sabres Steven Stamkos - F - Tampa Bay Lightning Dylan Larkin - F - Detroit Red Wings Claude Giroux - F - Ottawa Senators Auston Matthews - F - Toronto Maple Leafs Bo Horvat - F - New York Islanders Brandon Montour - D - Florida Panthers Cale Makar - D - Colorado Avalanche Brent Burns - D - Carolina Hurricanes Charlie McAvoy - D - Boston Bruins Tyson Barrie - D - Nashville Predators Drew Doughty - D - Los Angeles Kings European Mika Zibanejad - F - New York Rangers Adrian Kempe - F - Los Angeles Kings Evgeni Malkin - F - Pittsburgh Penguins Alex Ovechkin - F - Washington Capitals Mats Zuccarello - F - Minnesota Wild Roope Hintz - F - Dallas Stars Nico Hischier - F - New Jersey Devils Anze Kopitar - F - Los Angeles Kings Andrei Svechnikov - F - Carolina Hurricanes Jesper Bratt - F - New Jersey Devils Miro Heiskanen - D - Dallas Stars Victor Hedman - D - Tampa Bay Lightning Mikhail Sergachev - D - Tampa Bay Lightning Hampus Lindholm - D - Boston Bruins Rasmus Andersson - D - Calgary Flames Filip Hronek - D - Vancouver Canucks Ilya Sorokin - G - New York Islanders European (Overseas) Marko Dano - F - HC Oclari Trinec (Czech) Jori Lehtera - F - Tappara (Liiga) Antti Suomela - F - IK Oskarshamm (SHL) Linus Omark - F - Geneve-Servette HC (NL) Marcel Noebels - F - Eisbaren Berlin (DEL) Brady Shaw - HC Innsbruck (ICEHL) Young Stars Matias Macceli - F - Arizona Coyotes Martin Necas - F - Carolina Hurricanes Cole Perfetti - F - Winnipeg Jets Shane Pinto - F - Ottawa Senators Ty Voit - F - Sarnia Sting Pavel Mintyukov - D - Ottawa 67's Zachary Bolduc - F - Quebec Ramparts Riley Kidney - F - Gatineau Olympiques Matthew Maggio - F - Windsor Spitfires Amadeus Lombardi - F - Flint Firebirds Tristan Luneau - D - Gatineau Olympiques Connor Ungar - D - Moose Jaw Warriors Matt Boldy - F - Minnesota Wild Women's Michelle Karvinen - F - Team Finland Amanda Kessel - F - Team USA Sarah Nurse - F - Team Canada Brianne Jenner - F - Team Canada Ronja Salvolainen - D - Team Finland Petra Nieminen - F - Team Finland Emily Clark - F - Team Canada Update (3/28): Added posts for European (Overseas) players. Replaced Wyatt Johnston with Matt Boldy under Young Stars.
Tips for Defending in '23
Seems like many people have some gripes about defense - myself included. Over the last couple of weeks, I've refined and adjusted defensively, and I feel that I've gotten more comfortable in defending than I was at launch. Here are a few tips I'd like to pass along to the community. Some of this might already seem self-evident to long-standing defenders who understand the position inside and out. So, these may not be for you - although I hope my GIFS can add some context to age-old defensive nuance that may provide a new perspective and encourage everyone to up their game. Also - I play an incredibly passive defensive game. This might not be for everyone. You're likely going to see instances where I should've gone for a poke/body check and I don't. My argument to that would be that I feel in '23 - a poke check or a body check is more likely to put you out of position than it is to actually knock the puck loose and cause a turnover, especially when a puck carrier skates into the zone.. Of course, this will vary depending on who you're controlling and their body check/poke check attribute. Tip # 1: Be passive & Cut off the inside track Offensive players have become accustomed to lackluster defenders online. They will bait you into using an R1 poke check, thus killing your speed, and then taking that open ice to get right in to the slot. To defend this - resist the urge to poke check as soon as you've locked on to the puck carrier and guide them wide of the slot and/or force them to attempt to cross in front of you. Here I am taking up position and not allowing the puck carrier to cross in front to the slot. It forces him wide, negates the threat to the slot and I've also retained the speed & agility on my defender, allowing me the speed to keep tracking him and cut off his eventual 2nd attempt at getting a money-goal-slot-shot: Here I shut down his anticipated move to the slot. When he has no recourse, he pulls up - thus negating his speed. This allows me to match his positioning while utilizing poke check to stifle another attempt at moving to the slot. If I had attempted a poke check while the puck carrier was skating full speed, he would've blown right by me. But I maintain composure and only utilize the poke when I know he's slowed down and it's not as big of a risk for me to use it: Another example of being patient, keeping in line with the lateral plane of the puck carrier and not letting anything get to the slot: Tip # 2: Use the threat of a poke check to slow down the rush, allowing backchecking forwards to get into their defensive positions Here, I am once again being very passive but that's because I KNOW my opponent wants me to go for a poke check so he can abuse the slowdown and get to a prime scoring area. However, I don't poke check immediately (which is what he expects) and I force him to glide and hold the puck forehand/backhand. This slows him down considerably (thank goodness) and you can see this allows my teammates to clog the slot and snuff that threat: Tip #3: Poke check when the puck carrier's feet stop moving Puck carriers love to bait the D in to using the poke check. However, when they stop moving their feet, a poke check will not penalize the defender as much and is generally more accurate: Also - once the players' feet stops moving or they've entered the dreaded LT in the slot - use a flick of RS to knock them off: Tip #4: Pump LT on defense A weird habit I've picked up is pumping LT while defending. This ensures my defender is constantly facing the puck carrier, even at weird angles: This allows me to maintain my forward speed and match the puck carrier while facing him, without being victim of the animations that get triggered when you fully enter LT: But be careful - in this clip, I pump LT just one too many times and almost get caught: Tip 5: Lateral movement is paramount and NOT chasing is key Here, my opponent is having difficulty entering the zone. Because they are not too keen on dumping and chasing and they want to just carry the puck in to wheel-snipe-celly, I can completely shut it down by ensuring I don't chase him but also that I move laterally to cover his intended entry in to the zone: By not rushing the puck carrier, it forces them to make a movement that they didn't anticipate and it sends them right in to traffic: I'll continue to update this thread with anything I find useful to pass along to my fellow d-Men. If there's anything specific you'd like me to capture, let me know!
NHL 23: A D-man perspective
I've been playing NHL as a D-man as far back as I can remember. I play mostly 5v5 and 6v6. I've been lucky to be on Top 10 teams for the last four years with experience in LG, XHL, and 6HL. I've also been a Top 30 D-man as far as those modes go. I'm not throwing out those stats for brownie points, but I just want to reiterate that I've basically adapted to defense as the years go by. It will also be nice to have other D-men, no matter which mode you play, chime in on how you feel the defense is in this game. FYI, this is all based off Xbox Series X new-gen. So how do I feel? Let down mostly. For the last four years this series has seen a decline in defensive tools. It started, IMO, with EA wanting to address the poke spam. Their solution? An abundance of tripping penalties. Then year after year, defensive tools started to become penalty magnets. Poke, hitting, and just using DSS to prevent 93 speed wingers from blowing by you culminated in a penalty. Actively blocking shots can create tripping penalties. Unfortunately, I think this year is the year that I don't have the drive to want to adapt anymore. At least in previous years it was a gradual change, but this year it feels the defense has been absolutely gutted. Defense starts with positioning yes, but stick play and physical play make up the active portions of it. Everything feels off as far as those are concerned. Hitting is hit or miss. Sometimes if I'm in good position to hit, my DD build simply glances off. Most of the time, I'm just looking to separate the puck from the carrier, but the magnet is back in full force. LT is back as well which makes being physical more difficult. When poke checks happen the puck speed dies on the ice for the same poked player to pick it right back up. As far as the DSS goes, it should just be removed if i's going to be nerfed as is. Poke speed and DSS absolutely kills your speed and combined with last year's move to slow down pivots, I feel like I'm playing neutral zone and defensive zone hockey most of the game just trying to prevent breakout slap shots that seem to end up right on the sticks of players that will receive the puck even if it's impossible for their avatar to see the puck for a reception at lightening speed. I won't even mention the stick lift. That mechanic is so broken it isn't even worth talking about. Offense sells the game, yes. I get that, but the tilt in balance between offense and defense/goalie keeps getting worse. It makes me think back to the time pre-tuner 2019 released. Bumps separated the puck from the player, passes couldn't be received at full speed unless you had the trait for it, and it forced the offensive to play a team game rather than one man, LT-induced abuse of the mechanics. On the defensive side, poking too much gave you penalties. Gap control was based off skill rather than speed and positioning was rewarded. Hits weren't guaranteed, but at least the physics of the hit dictated puck separation. Then the Day 1 tuner game back and undid all of it. Maybe a tuner fixes what's going on right now. but the offense is so OP it really isn't worth my frustration trying to defend mechanics that continuously punishes you. Maybe I'm wrong! I can accept that as well. If there are D-men having fun right now, so be it, but I don't think you can dispute the balance is just one-sided right now.Please add "full broadcast" back to options!
This game's presentation is similar to watching a condensed game online! There's not production value in the games anymore! How did this change get approved? Hardly any stadium shots, instant replays etc. No opening for the start of a new game, straight to puck drop? What is this?! EA please add the broadcast production value back to the game!
Very Disappointed in NHL 23
Man I was so excited for this game. Felt like a kid again waiting for its release. Man what a disappointment. Sorry to say but NHL games have now become exclusively for online players...offline players like myself get nothing. I was going to buy 23 and a new PS5. After the 10 hour trail I won't be buying either. Would of been nice if they updated the Alumni player faces since we even helped them out with that. Many other current day NHLers don't have their real faces either. I've already deleted the trail version, not out of spite, but just that it sucks. I went back to my NHL 21 which plays much better. I advice all other offline players that come to this EA forum to voice their options and suggestions to just not waste your time anymore. Doesn't really seem like anything we really want ever gets put in the game. Like this new shinny Franchise mode that's giving us this new custom league option to recreate the 1980s or even the Original 6. Well have fun having Wayne Gretzky wear #98 and all those old legends will have wrong jersey numbers aswell as the retired jerseys option is NOT IN Franchise mode. Bravo guys Bravo.Might just be time to give up on this franchise
How can a copy and paste annually released game be THIS broken? Literally every aspect of this game is a mess. Between incorrect rewards, games not counting, input lag and a plethora of other issues, I'm at the point where I'm just going to cut ties and move on. Congratulations EA. You somehow managed to mess up the easiest method of game development(copy and paste annual release). Maybe you should focus on hiring the best talent instead of making sure you hit the right check marks for whatever matches the current narrative.LT abuse is still there
Granted, my defending in these clips is atrocious. I'll concede that. However, just look at the ease in which the offensive player maintains control of the puck while literally going through defenders. Because we're still catering to HUT Bunnies and streamers who complain about "Skill Zoning" (I'd like to see what button these people push to control all 6 players at once) - we're left with A.I. defenders who just sit by while the puck carrier just goes through them. So this is fun. LT use MORE effective this year while defending using proper DSS and poke checks is LESS effective. All because HUT bunnies want to be able to dangle, snipe and celly while twitch streaming. Please, for the love of god, stop catering to these clowns.
Why is nobody complaining about the hitting bubble?
Why is nobody talking about the bubble players have when they get hit from certain angles? You can have defensemen literally charge at somebody, throw a hit into their shoulder and they just bounce right off. Why is nobody outraged at this? It was in the technical test and it continued through to the regular version. All it takes is one slider to be adjusted (stumble mechanics) and it'd be fixed but nobody is complaining about it. Why? Especially against LT/L2 abusers.
Offline Creators Wishlist
I love to create teams/leagues/cups and more in the offline modes, and I think many of the things I list down below is more than me that would love to have it in the game. Sadly this list is a copy of the one for NHL 22, because EA NHL, didn´t implemented anything from the list more than the IIHF Update with Slovenia, Hungary and South Korea. Some of the things are probably easy to implement in the game but gives us a game that we would love even more. And some of the things would take more effort from EA to implement but would still make the NHL game even better than it is today. National teams (doubles of players in the game because of the setup of national teams) There is a few problems with the National Teams setup in NHL games right now. * There is doubles of the same players in the roster file. Thats means that if you move out a player from the National team roster, there is two of the same player in the World in many cases. * You can´t edit a player if he is only in the National Team roster. If you want to edit the player you need to move him to a club team, edit him and then move in back to the national Team. Lots of extra work there. * You can´t have players under the age of 18 in the National Team roster, We all remember the Rasmus Dahlin problem in the last Olympic Games, everyone had to create a custom Rasmus Dahlin to be able to have him in the Swedish Olympic roster. And we all know that there is always a few young upcoming stars playing in the World Championships for some nations, that we have to manually create. And we also have to cheat the system even with a created player. - Change his age to +18, assign him to the National team, and then change his age back to under 18. My idéa of a solution to all of this three problems is that we handel National Teams rosters the same way we handel created teams rosters. We assign players to the team with an option like in Create a team roster, and only get copies of the players in the roster. If we remove the player from the national team, there is no double anywhere. And we get the option to actually edit players in the National team roster. (And yes it will change the real player in the club team he is on). More leagues: Slovakian Extraliga EIHL (Great Britain) Optibet Hokeja Līga (Baltic Hockey League) Alphs Hockey league KHL (We can all dream) and name NHL 23 to Hockey World 24 😉 Mestis (Finnish second division) USHL NCAA Customization (This is the big part of the wishlist and would make the game - Play - No limits) 😉 - Be able to use all logos that is already in the game (not only NHL and ECHL) when creating a team - Be able to fully edit all players in a franchise save (change RW to LW for example) - Be able to have arenas that is not PRO in the Franchise mode/create a club, like its in EASHL clubs in the beginning. - Remove the limit to move an underaged player to only a CHL Team in Player Movement - Rosters. (In Europe underaged players do change teams IRL) Update locations that are missing when creating a team or player: Sweden: Huddinge, Kiruna, Halmstad, Karlstad, Gävle, Ängelholm, Örnsköldsvik, Kristianstad, Norrköping, Karlskoga, Uppsala, Västerås, Tingsryd, Ljungby, Västervik, Oskarshamn, Boden, Kallinge, Umeå, Karlstad, Östersund. Finland: Rovaniemi, Joensuu, Vantaa, Forssa, Kokkola, Kajaani, Iisalmi, Imatra, Keuruu, Seinäjoki, Savonlinna, Heinola, Hyvinkää., Järvenpää, Kerava, Kirkkonummi, Kotka, Lempälä, Uusikaupunki Russia: Sochi, Yekaterinburg, Podolsk, Khanty Mansiysk, Voskresensk, Vladivostok, Perm, Samara, Krasnoyarsk Austria: Salzburg, Villach, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, Linz, Graz EIHL: Belfast, Coventry, Cardiff, Dundee, Kirkcaldy, Guilford, Sheffield, Edinburgh Slovakia: Banska Bystrica, Kosice, Nove Zamky, Presov, Liptovsky Mikulas, Michalovce, Trencin, Nitra, Poprad, Spisska Nova Ves, Zvolen. Poland: Warszawa, Tychy, Kraków, Katowice, Oświęcim, Nowy Targ, Sanok, Sosnowiec, Jastrzębie (JKH GKS from CHL), Toruń, Krynica, Gdańsk, Bytom Ukraine: Kremenchuk, Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkiv Norway: Oslo, Lillehammer Kazakstan: Nur-Sultan, Astana, Almaty, Oskemen Lituania: Vilnius, Elektrenai, Kaunas World: Riga (Latvia), Minsk (Belarus), Tallinn (Estonia, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Shenzhen (China), Seoul (South Korea), Anyang (South Korea), Lake Placid (NY, USA), Reykjavik (Iceland), Bolzano (Italy), Asiago (Italy), Brunico (Italy), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Szekesfehervar (Hungary), Kushiro (Japan) and Tomakomai (Japan). Countries: Wales, Taiwan, Luxembourg, Spain, Iceland Franchise Mode - Custom league (new) - Have the opportunity to substitube the AHL affiliate for all of the teams over 32+. Its broken right now and gives you SHL teams as your AHL affiliate when you add more teams than 32. - Have the opportunity to have expansions during the save. Franchise Mode - Have the opportunity to send players to their ECHL affiliate, and not just to the AHL affiliate. - Be able to fully edit generated players in the draft (or be able to do it after the draft, change appereance not just the beard, name, nationality etc) - Be able to edit the names and apperance on the generated coaches in your team (NHL + AHL) Add - non american names to players born in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia for the generated players in draft. (Your friends at FIFA have a good name pool for these countries) Playoff mode - Be able to play just the playoffs from any of the 13 leagues in the game, not just NHL. (Like you can in season mode) (It looks odd men Two teams from Finland wins Stanley Cup and not Liiga in playoffs mode for example) - Be able to make a custom playoff mode - name and teams in it Tournament mode Be able to create a custom tournament (for example Olympics, World Cup or others) and not just Spengler Cup and Champions Hockey League Be able to swap the teams in Spengler Cup and Champions Hockey league CHL (Champions Hockey League) Be able to substitube the teams before you start a season, just like you can do before you start a league season in the game. Play Now Mode - Have the opportunity to choose what arena the game will be played on. (And options to choose from every arena in the game or created in Create a team mode or the standard EASHL and CHEL arenas) - Have the opportunity to choose if the game will be played in a outdoor rink (with those options for arena, maybe even the ones from CHEL and EASHL) - Have the opportunity to choose the value of the game that will be played. (For example World Championship semifinal, Stanley Cup Conference Final or LIIGA Final with those logos and settings for commentators and winning ceremony) League mode Be able to create a custom league (be able to set number of teams, set the amount of divisions/conferences/or just have the European way with no division and conferences and if you want to have a relegation/promotion league system) And then be able to choose freely what clubs you want to have in the mode. Choose what kind of league Logo and name you want it to have. I was thinking that not all of us want to play Franchise mode with 32 teams, but we still would like to play more than one season. Because the problem with Franchise mode is that its connected with AHL (farm teams). Generic Arenas: Be able to change and edit the arenas for teams that have a generic arena. For example if I play with Växjö Lakers, the arena is now EA Sports Arena, Stockholm. I should be able to edit what arena Växjö have in the game and be able to rename it to Vida Arena in Växjö (just like you can change and edit generic arenas in FIFA for those teams that dont have a licensed one in the game). These are the ones I wish now. But if EA NHL would like to know more of these ones, be free to contact me, I would love to help creating even a better NHL game.
Offline Community is Frustrated!
Numerous offline gamers/content creators are frustrated with the content and other issues pertaining the game modes. Something that was noticed from NHL 20 that carried on to 23 was that players had wrong handedness. This included my cousin Ryan who plays in the ECHL. He is a right hand shot, not a lefty! Lots of top Roster content creators have done the work to fix these issues and have asked to help EA with it. Why not included them in the roster editing before game release to get the handedness/heights correct? This is just the tip of the iceberg to many ither problems. In Franchise mode the line chemistry is abysmal! A 76 overall is on the 1st line while a 98 is on the 3rd? RFA offer sheets a broken! You can qualify a player who finished their entry level contract without losing any picks... Presentation is a short cutscene that might be there every 3-8 games... You can't included female players from the international rosters. BAP wasn't even touched! Many longtime requests never made the cut! Can't use a female player in the mode... Creation those is lackluster in female player hairstyles. Wanted to create a bunch of PWHPA players but the lack of customization makes it unrealistic... Allstar/Prospects games still missing! Seems more offline content gets removed and instead we get these trends like the Michigan. Zegras, and one last chance puck movement where you dive all over the ice like it's a all-star swim team. The offline community matters too! I play HUT/WOC mainly myself but not everyone does! A patch to fix the offline content is needed for this game to survive until 24 arrives! Sadly I uninstalled it until something is done!Useless Update
So, NHL 23 recently got updated. Here’s what we want in an update: The fixing of the 2007 bug, the Full Presentation feature, fixes to the blackout bug, and fixes to coaching strategies in Franchise. What do we get instead? Disney getting even richer because of the Mighty Ducks movies’ 30th anniversary. That’s literally it. That’s all we got. A huge corporation licensing something from another huge corporation. Now, can we get the actual issues fixed, like those I already mentioned, instead of creating a problem that doesn’t exist and fixing THAT?Franchise Mode - Fully unlock edit players
Posting this again since we have no information about it, which likely means we are STILL LOCKED OUT from editing players during a franchise.. and even then we can only edit very basic things… Copy paste; “I think this warrants it’s own thread topic.. we want the edit players function to be unlocked for us.. and not just the basics but everything unlocked please. It makes no sense why it was removed. It would allow us to fix the generated prospects because their attributes, position and play style are always so chaotic. you get a prospect that is a sniper.. centre, who’s 6’6, 235lbs, with high body checking, aggressiveness, def awareness, strength stats.. but low off awareness, skating, puck skills, face offs.. this clearly should be a grinder and winger but we can’t change it.. and for the players that are into super realism.. young NHL players grow.. some might still grow an inch.. but mostly, players get beefy.. they train. They go from 6’1 175lbs to 6’1 195lbs of muscle and we can’t edit their strength attributes, or their weight so it reflects properly and let’s not forget that EA themselves also incorrectly lists players heights/weights.. and even positions. so let us fix it. It just doesn’t make sense that the edit player was removed.. and never have got an answer from the EA letting us know why please unlock edit player and allow FULL customization at start of save file, mid season, 15 seasons in.. just fully unlock it “Proper Company Ettiquette
I want to share this because this is proper for a company to do, especially if there is backlash amongst their customers about their product's quality. This is something Paradox does weekly for all its active games; https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-64-post-release-plans.1553970/ They lay out what they are working on; the problems they acknowledge and what they are doing to fix them. They break it down generally here and are giving further updates going into detail about what they are working on. You get a great idea of what is coming long before it comes and this invites feedback from fans on how it could be improved or what might be a mistake long before it is released. Players would have known that full presentation was going to be nixed or that the true broadcast camera was going to be fundamentally changed long before it caused problems. I think this is what people on this forum are looking for from the developers - this kind of communication that gives an idea of what is going on. It is not like EA has any competition at all with this title, so there is no fear that letting us know a month ahead of time what is being worked on will lead to another company poaching the idea before EA can release it. Communicate.NHL 24 Feature Suggestions
I’ve created a feature list that would be nice to see in the NHL 24. I’m a Franchise Mode only player, so these features are focusing on Franchise Mode and Roster features. I totally understand that Franchise Mode is not high on the priority list from a business perspective, as the money is made with the Online Modes. This is why all the feature requests listed here are something that are doable without huge resource needs and effort. But all these small tweaks would be a big positive difference on the Franchise Mode and managing user created players/teams. So not asking for a moon here. Roster Updating & Player Creation: Let user created underaged players be moved over to the European teams and all the Canadian Junior Leagues. There are no restrictions for under-18 players to play in those leagues. This would save a lot of time when creating rosters and trying to move the players onto the right teams. Now you need to change their age, move the player and then again adjust the age back. When in the “Create A Player” list, give an option to sort and see the created players by position and alphabetically. As an example: Show only “Left Wingers” or players whose names start with the letter “H”. This would help with managing the user created players when there’s hundreds of them. Give a full player modifying rights to real players (Also in the Franchise Mode) This would help roster creators to modify wrong information that the official rosters sometimes have. As an example, earlier we had Arber Xhekaj’s height and weight wrong that could have been fixed by users themselves without waiting for an official roster update. Let us merge roster files with official roster updates without it resetting our changes. Basically, let us choose which file will be the master file when merging. This way we could get updates of the new official rosters (new players, player pics etc.) without cancelling our changes on the real players and removing the user created players from their teams. You can just have a flag that if the player has been modified, the merging will ignore it and move to the next one. The merging would only merge the players/data when the player hasn’t been modified or is a new one. I’m not sure if player pics could have another flag that lets the merge only update the pic. So I understand if that’s not really possible. Franchise Mode: Add generated pictures for auto-generated players. The game already has this feature in Be A Pro-mode. So minimum resources needed for this feature. This type of system has been used as an example in the Football Manager franchise and brings a bit of extra life in the game. Have country specific name pools for auto generated players. Currently there’s random English names used for many European countries and it breaks the realism. As an example: Your FIFA franchise has proper name pools that could be just exported and used in an NHL franchise. Let us choose our AHL affiliate from the User Created Teams and also choose the AHL Division for the team when starting the Custom 33 Team Franchise Mode. This is something that can be a realism breaker, as if you create as an example Regina team, it will be stuck on the North Division. Also, we need to create the AHL every time when starting the mode is very time consuming. Let us relocate an NHL team and the AHL affiliate with User Created Team when we start the Franchise Mode. This would be a neat little option, as we don’t always want to play GM Mode on or custom 33 team mode. Add ECHL affiliates to Franchise Mode. This would give more options to send the players to the right level to develop. Would make more usage of those teams as well. Add a European loan option for signed European prospects. This would be as in real life, some European prospects plate their first and even a second of their contract years in Europe. First loan wouldn’t burn their first year of the contract. To make this simple, you could send an European prospect to their European team like you can send CHL prospects back to their teams currently in the game. Add LTIR and No-Movement Clauses to the Franchise mode. Would bring much more realism to the mode with not much effort. Small change, big effect. Add a Coach style “Youngsters”. This would be the same as current “Veterans”, but would just have an emphasis on skilling up the younger players. Add some more varieties on the generated Coaches. The tactics and preferred line tactics haven’t been updated for some time now and runs only a few different templates for each category. Make the players be able to adapt to the line tactics over time. This shouldn’t be fast, as every category has 3 options, but maybe one level per season or two. This would make it possible to plan for the long run and make players familiar with the scheme in the long run. Many times we just need to trade the player as he doesn’t fit to any scheme of the coach. Make the non-GM mode budgets for Coaching and Scouting optional Currently those budgets don’t matter when you are playing without the GM mode and would be nice to have an option when you start the mode to have a toggle switch that gives an option if those budgets are on or off. Make goalie overall matter when simulating the games. Currently goalie performances seem to be almost completely random, 92 overall goalie usually simulates worse than 82 overall one and you can win a Cup with 75 overall goalie. In-Game: Tweak or give us a possibility to tweak CPU shot frequency Currently CPU do not shoot enough and when they do it’s 50-50 chance that they will score. This causes ridiculous issues with the goalie save percentages. When playing with 5 min periods, CPU usually has around 10 shots in a game and has scored 3 to 4 times. CPU shouldn’t be able to score with such a high rate and should shoot more from the less dangerous areas. If we could tweak this as we can do with the shot accuracy, I’m sure users could find more realistic sliders to help with the realism. Beta testing: Please make sure that Franchise Mode is being beta tested by the testing team, or better yet, with Franchise Mode players. I’m sure they would do it for free. I definitely would! I’m sure there’s a lot of other tweaks people would like to see in the game, but in my humble opinion this list would be definitely doable for the team to add to the NHL 24. To be honest, I would be ecstatic and I’m sure most of the players would be too only to see these updates and nothing else in the mode next year! Finally just pointing out that I know most of these feature requests are all ready been requested one way or another in these boards, but I included them as think it's beneficial to have them all in same post, even if they're duplicates.EA's Priorities
Rather than taking the True Broadcast thread off topic, I thought it best to create a new thread for this. @EA_Aljoyou were talking about different teams within the NHL team working on different aspects. The presentation team was working on completely changing the True Broadcast mode based on feedback no one else was aware of and just irritated a bunch of other people who may have been fine up to that point. They said that they are no longer going to buy the game because what made it playable for them is now gone. EA could easily fix this - and it is far from uncommon for a quick fix to be posted soon after a patch because it causes problems, but they won't. Meanwhile, there is a debacle going on because of all the presentation that was intentionally removed from the game. Presumably that would fall under the presentation team's tasks. Rather than restore the same functionality as was there in NHL 22 where you could turn on full presentation, a literal copy and paste job, the team decided to ignore the very significant uproar to create more uproar. You stated that you, yourself, are unconcerned with presentation. You only care about the gameplay being authentic - and I am guessing that the majority of the dev team feels just like you do. They don't care about presentation - they probably don't care about offline play. They are creating a game that simply fits their needs and they don't have the perspective that a lot of your customers have. Well, let me tell you about why I play games. I have steadily worked a 40 hour job for the past 17 years, ever since I got my bachelor's. I also am going back to grad school, getting my master's and PhD while working full time. My life is stress. I play games to escape that stress, to escape my life. I don't play looking for a challenge, I play to feel accomplished and I create false illusions of grandeur. If' I'm playing a strategy game I'm cheating, if I'm playing a RPG I'm save editing, if I'm playing this game I'm making super powered players to see success. Why? To escape the stress of the real world. I am not every customer, but I am part of that patchwork and I'm sure there are others out there who play just the same. It's also part of why I have no interest in online play; I don't want to deal with people who have nothing else to do but play this game and I don't want to have to learn all the little ways to game the system - and even if I could cheat I wouldn't want to do it where it harms someone else. I just want a nice, relaxing game experience. I want immersion with a feeling of grandeur. For that purpose, presentation is extremely important. I want the stuff that helps me forget the real world and instead think that this game world is the real world. That means that I want to immersed and see the long pregame discussion and see the players actually take the ice. I want to see that the grandeur is recognized. I want to see all those little bumpers and I want to see the full goal presentation. Now, if I'm scoring 50 goals in a game to escape the real world, I may skip some of the replay, especially if I'm on a run, but I want it to be there for me when I want to see it. How did they score on me, how was that penalty drawn. Was I controlling that player when it happened or was that the CPU that messed up? Oh, look at how beautiful that goal was. These help me escape the real world. But the EA devs don't feel that way and they don't interact with people that feel that way. They don't bother to do basic studies to figure out what that variety is that makes up their customer base. They don't even recognize that the variety exists. They didn't notice it when some players wanted that true broadcast mode and just replaced it rather than creating a hybrid one for those that didn't like it. They didn't notice it when they took away full presentation to make online play faster without offering it for those who want that presentation. They didn't notice it when they made it so that blocking the puck became likely to cause tripping penalties because online players were abusing it. They didn't notice it when they made it so that if you accidentally twitch during a faceoff you lost that faceoff because online players were spamming the draw. They didn't notice it when every poke check took a player to the ground because online players were spamming the poke check. It always has to be a one size fits all solution with EA despite there being a great diversity amongst the customer base. I don't like other sports. I played hockey as a kid and it creates a bit of a zen feeling. I played goal - but between the limited controls and that my play style (fall down) isn't supported, I never ended up playing goalie in this game, instead adapting to play other positions. The specifics of it were foreign to me so I never cared about realistic deking or that poke checks are perfectly aligned - it was just creating an illusion. I'm also a trans woman, so it was a big deal when female skaters became a thing you could create, and when they became customizeable that was also big. I wrote about it back then, just over five years ago. https://yttribune.com/2017/09/19/nhl-18-review-improvements-flaws-and-room-to-grow/ I noted that it was a big step up, though it was odd that the hairstyles weren't very feminine, but it was too fresh then to push for more. Then we had the trailers this year and there was the hair I had been waiting for those five years. Finally. I was disappointed with NHL 22 and swore I would wait before buying the next one but I saw that hair and that would have been enough to justify the expense for me alone. I was giddy. You also promised a bunch of new face meshes - also not delivered upon as all the face meshes appear to be the exact same that were in NHL 22 before the promotional videos ever came out. There was expressed focus on all the graphical improvements. I thought it was going to be a jubilation. However, it wasn't there. Despite the fact that the presentation team could work on that presentation in create-a-player, EA couldn't take the time to make that available. I actually cried at one point and I didn't understand why - I wasn't even conscious of how much that meant to me only to be taken away. EA built my hopes up and then let me fall down to the hard ice, unprepared. Actually, I asked about that after the pre-release and you had stated that you couldn't comment on it, it would have to wait until release. It wasn't there and it caused emotional harm. EA didn't just fail to deliver, EA caused emotional harm. And here is where I'm going to get myself banned again, because I'm going to talk about moderation. This is you from here on out. So as I'm sitting there, upset and dejected, trying to play through Be a Pro, it not only stands out that we lost the minors that we wanted, it really stuck in the lack of attention given to female players. I posted a thread about it - EA had made all of these female players you create for Be A Pro and without exception they give off a masculine vibe. Everything about the presentation of female players in Be A Pro is masculine. It is misgendering to trans women like me who want to feel like our true selves when playing to give us that constant nudge that we're really just men through that presentation. There is nothing wrong with trans men being represented in the game, but it ought not to be the only representation. You ignore those who are upset that the game is leaving them behind and making itself unplayable tot hem, but the moderation team chose to actively antagonize me, as a dissatisfied customer who has bought thousands of dollars of EA products over the years. If EA wants to prioritize online players and bigots and do away with the rest of us, then it has the obligation to make that clear. What is the team working on - what do they intend to have fixed in this title? You clearly weren't listening when there are 900 posts in a thread complaining about presentation if you thought making a subpar intro apply to all teams and trigger merely "more often" rather than always was the gist of those complaints. Most of it had to do with full presentation. Why is EA refusing to genuinely interact with its customers. And if that presentation team had taken a fraction of the time they spent driving away customers with true broadcast being taken away making the hair meshes available, I probably would have been silent. I would have been playing the game instead of spending time on these forums complaining, even without the presentation, even without the promised face meshes, even without the new franchise mode feature working properly. But I just keep getting the sense that EA doesn't want my money; my money is dirty somehow. They want the 13 year old kids making racist stereotypes online's money, not mine. You just want me to go away, because I am not part of whatever uniculture you have going on in that dev team.NHL 24 Franchise Wishlist
Since NHL 23's Franchise did a fantastic job of listening to the communities wants, I'll bite the bullet and start the list for next year Some of this stuff could be in the game this year, but I wouldn't know since I have yet to buy it. List is in no particular order (although some are more important than others). Ones in bold are the ones I think would be valuable inclusions Ones in italics are the ones that need to be in the game yesterday ability to edit players ability to edit existing jerseys or add new ones new menus ability to create custom logos no-trade/move clauses (and modified versions) being able to edit draft classes, or custom draft classes sim engine logic real NHL coaches hall of fame inductees international leagues and free agents (even of it is not the KHL) ability to retire numbers advanced analytics? (corsi, xGF, xSV%, etc.) free agency revamp (have players sign on the day it opens and not the 8th of july) conditional draft picks in trades elite forward and defencemen player types (McDavid and Makar would be elite players while Marchand and Ekblad would only be 1st line/top pair) dual archetypes (expanding on the playmaker, sniper, two-way) pure playmaker/sniper (Backstrom/Ovechkin) playmaking sniper/sniping playmaker (Matthews/McDavid) offensive/defensive two-way (Barkov/Aston-Reese) replicate for defencemen winter classic/outdoor games/wjc/olympics/world championship custom goalie masks able to trade more than 5 assets player loyalty and value of winning/money add more hockey analysts to the news tab (it can be joe smith for all i care, just more than one) able to see box scores from calendar menu give cpu gm's a name and face expansion/rebrand of teams after beginning mode playoff/pre-season/post-deadline rosters are not limited to 23 players be able to loan players to europe or ahl teams player progression/regression sliders ridiculous contract demands from players development or loss of zone abilities be able to relocate AHL team player agents cba accurate entry level contracts college free agents (does not have to be NCAA)
