Re: Forward builds/ Defense Builds
The WOC class system as a whole needs to be rethought. I'm not sure there's a silver bullet but the current system where most of the player base ends up using more or less the same two or three builds because they're that much better than everything else is clearly not working as intended. And up front I want to say that I'm talking about how most of the player-base plays the game. Yes, a small amount of elite players can make non-meta builds work for them, but the vast, vast majority of players end up railroaded into the meta builds just to keep up. I'll also say that while having a meta play style is to be somewhat expected in video games, the build meta for WOC has been pretty much exactly the same for years without any meaningful balancing.
Comparisons to real-life players probably isn't useful. It inevitably leads down the same rabbit hole: McDavid is big and super-fast so my WOC build should be able to do that. Ovechkin is big and can shoot so my build should be big, as fast as McDavid and shoot like Ovechkin. Lindros could hit so I should be able to have a build as big as Lindros that can hit, skate like McDavid, and shoot like Ovechkin. etc, etc, etc. Might as well just give everyone the same big, fast, hard-shooting, hard-hitting build. And who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for the mode. This is probably going to be considered blasphemous to a lot of people here, but for me one of the best post-NHL 15 year for builds ( not necessarily gameplay ) was NHL 16. Fixed builds and most importantly everyone had the same skating attributes. With no arms race to keep up with max speed builds people were free to run with a build that fit their style of play the best. I kind of miss it at times.
But fixed builds are a thing of the past, everyone wants customization. And unless customization is just going to mean "I want to be good at everything" there needs to be trade-offs, which makes sense from a video-game/RPG perspective. This is where the EASHL custom build system has always failed. There are trade-offs, but there aren't meaningful trade-offs.
Consider speed and acceleration ( ignoring the yearly "does acceleration do anything?" debate ). Almost every build I see completely strips the four shot attributes in order to pour everything into speed and acceleration. And why not? The skating attributes have a meaningful impact on the game while the difference between mid-80s shooting attributes and low-70s is so insignificant as to be unnoticeable. It's the same reason why people run with lightweight, short builds. The trade-off of balance, checking and strength don't matter enough to counter the upside of being fast and agile.
It creeps into other areas too. Every year I start out trying a more defensively geared forward build for center. Usually TWF or Grinder. And every year I end up running some waif of a sniper because I don't notice a meaningful difference between high and low defensive awareness and stick checking attributes. So I end up going with the build that can best keep up with the other speedsters.
And the list can go on. There's so many attributes in EASHL that don't seem to have enough impact to the average Joe that they aren't just fodder to be stripped and dumped into the handful of attributes that matter.
I wish I could offer a perfect solution, but I don't think one exists. If the current system is going to continue I do have two suggestions. First, make attribute choices matter. If you max out in one area you should be equally terrible in another. And the downside needs to have as much in-game impact as the upside. Second, maybe don't have the system set up so the builds with the highest important attributes ( skating as things are now ) are also the builds with the highest base offensive attributes.
As I write this I keep circling back to fixed builds in my head. I'd be really curious to see a WOC mode where everybody played with the exact same build. I wonder how that would play out?
