Your surprised?!?! For years people have been echoing that the AI is not “smart”. They don’t read and react. They just match your controller inputs and match whatever movements you are making.
Dont believe me? Pass the puck to a defenseman in the neutral zone and wait for one of the checking forwards to catch up to your back. Then zig zag back to your own zone. You will literally watch them match your input without a moments hesitation. At least on madden the CPU AI reacts to what you’re doing on the field. They almost have to. This dev team solution for a more challenging game is to make the CPU psychic and able to do things the user can’t do.
I honestly believe the NHL series will eventually die. Just like NBA live. EA just won’t invest resources to get this series on to a healthy footing for the future. And honestly after all of the problems this year it doesn’t seem like the devs care either. The whole game is just riddled with bugs and a general lack of effort. This is just my opinion. If they want to ban me for it so be it. This game is a complete mess more than a month after release. Rosters are incomplete, players who have been in the AHL since last year are not in the game. Players who were in the game last year (juniors, Europe, etc.) who are AHL rookies are missing. European league rosters missing a ton of players as well. No full broadcast presentation. Every patch we get breaks something else, for instance 1-3-1 power play no longer assigned to coaches in franchise, 4 man and penalty kill lines now swapping wingers into center spot automatically. This game just really isn’t fun to play right now. I think people are going to give up on this series and next years sales will be so low EA may just say forget it. Not worth the time or money.
2k was able to recover from the WWE 2k20 debacle because they took a year off to iron out the bugs and revitalize the gameplay. But let’s face it. WWE games probably sell more than NHL games, and they can probably survive the hit of taking a year off to fix things.
Nothing new, this happens in online play too…
Community ManagerIt'll happen in every mode. It's not a bug and has been in the game for years. Since most people don't just stand still when they play, it hasn't been a big deal.
Yes, it’s not a big deal if you’re content with the game looking unpolished soon as you don’t touch the controller.
Community ManagerRealistically, it's not often someone is just dropping the controller when it's 0-0 and you're not on Superstar. I get the complaint, but it's happening only under specific conditions. I was just testing it out myself in a HUT challenge. I went up in the first period and they could stand still and experience this until the 3rd period started. Since I was winning, the AI opponent changed strategies and played more aggressive so they were attacking the carrier that wasn't moving as they're fighting harder to tie up the game towards the end of the 3rd.
It kind of is a big deal though. For countless years, NHL15-20, I can’t say 21 because I never got an opportunity to play franchise mode without my PS4 crashing, and in last year and this years game. There are times (even when I’m winning) and you go behind the net for a breakout (even keeping your strategies to aggressive which you used to be able to set in previous years but not this one *different convo*) I can sit there and the CPU AI will not attack you and they will sit at either top of the circle or blue line. It’s happened when tied (which I could kind of understand playing defensive) or even when winning by ANY amount. I’ve had it happen up 1, to even it happen up 4 or even 5. There have been times I’ve gone ehhh I’m done with the game and sat there for the whole period and let the time run out. It’s a very annoying thing that does happen and HAS happened for years
To respond also to my last comment, every year since NHL15 I’ve played on All-Star difficulty
