Community Manager
@KlariskraysNHL wrote:
@RatedxPGxEnigma It didn't happen in NHL 22 either. All because the beta in 21 felt so amazing and then they changed stuff and people lost their minds and thus they decided to no longer make changes from the betas if people felt OK with things.
We also reverted the beta changes and then were told the game felt the same still. Every year the claim was that the beta was great and we shouldn't change anything. When an update was released, minimal changes were made after that didn't affect what was being claimed. This has led us to not have gameplay updates. It's possible they could return in the future though.
@EA_Aljo do you realize how ridiculous that sounds from a professional software development team? You are basically stating that you are intentionally punishing the community because you didn't like the feedback you guys received with previous gameplay updates. This is childish. Maybe you guys need to do better job of explaining the changes and stop being so cryptic in the update messages. A huge part of the problem is the complete lack of transparency and communication. Nobody knows what is going on, how attributes work, etc. which just fuels speculation.
Instead of hiding in the corner with your ball, your team should be engaged with the community as well as providing gameplay updates that are sorely needed. All you are doing is pissing off your customers. You are losing trust, not only because of the lack of any sort of meaningful updates, but also because of features (specifically around presentation) that were promised and never delivered.
You can't keep treating your customers this way. Holding updates back because the team's feelings are hurt is just absurd. Really, this is a business, not a popularity contest. I don't know who is running the team over there, but they need to reassess their position on this matter. I've ran software teams over a broad spectrum of products for almost 30 years, and never have we held back updates because of past criticism. I can't believe this is what has come of the NHL team over there at EA.
Community ManagerThanks for the input. It's absolutely appreciated.
For multiple years in a row, the community specifically told us not to touch the game after the beta. I definitely get what you're saying, but this was a big request. I agree though that we need to communicate changes better and I hope to see that with future games. Again, I'm not saying there will be no more post-beta updates. I'm just explaining how this contributed to the lack of updates for 23.
We have gathered a ton of feedback since launch. While I don't have anything to share about what's coming, that input and sentiment we've received is very much taken in to consideration. Hopefully, we'll be seeing changes more in line with what the community wants in the future as a result of it.
Communication on the forums have been quite responsive, especially from Aljo which is awesome. I think majority of us in the community are talking about social media communication from Twitter, Facebook social media. Many including the top players in the game had no idea we even had a forum directed for the EA NHL series. Often there is no communication outside of the forums about changes going on to the current game unless it has to do with HUT events or Roster upgrades.
Once in awhile we get the occasional patch or WOC update but offline changes hardly have any interaction. BAP most people had no idea they added more contracts rather than picking from 2 teams. I have 2 EA NHL team members who follow me on Twitter. I'm sure they have seen the numerous 50+ videos I have uploaded of broken gameplay issues that haven't been fixed and not a peak of response. Found out Ben Ross is no longer part of the dev team for NHL after I sent him the video of my opponents players arms wrapping through the body doing a behind the back self sauce LT move. He said that was removed in NHL 21 around that year. Sadly it has returned in NHL 23 for some reason.
This sentiment of leaving the game the way it is at the closed technical test is damaging in the long run. It is difficult to go by that until weeks of playing the game. If it feels like it needs to be brought to the BETA tuners than yes do it! But if the feedbacks negative like with NHL 23 then they need to fix it and do a proper tuner update.
Most of the time it's the same top exploiters in the game who want the game unchanged when they know the broken gameplay mechanics. I have played HUT for 3 years now and because I was playing against them in GWC or playing with them in LG or other E-sport leagues I knew. Many of them told me how to do these things and sadly because to W you have to play dirty, I used this to my advantage. It sounds toxic but the gameplay doesn't simulate realistic hockey play so therefore be it.
I used to play more offline BAP/Franchise mode and EASHL OTP but the content is so stale and out of touch with the communities wants I don't bother anymore.
@smugxb"Instead of hiding in the corner with your ball, your team should be engaged with the community as well as providing gameplay updates that are sorely needed. All you are doing is pissing off your customers. You are losing trust, not only because of the lack of any sort of meaningful updates, but also because of features (specifically around presentation) that were promised and never delivered."
You see we actually had that until people on these forums attacked the devs because the explanation wasn't what they wanted to hear. The higher ups probably put an end to direct communication and for good reason as things they could say might make them liable or whatever. The FIFA team doesn't bother replying on forums or other places to people.
Amazon Games recently is shifting away from forums and instead making a discord server. This supposedly allows them to have better communication but in reality it just allows for topics to get swept by faster because no real conversation can be read. If people want to act up there it's much easier to just ban people without worry because it isn't on their stuff.
@KlariskraysNHL wrote:
You see we actually had that until people on these forums attacked the devs because the explanation wasn't what they wanted to hear. .
We had a really good thing going on those old forums. There was a time when it wasn't just Ben providing an insane level of detail about how their mechanics worked; we had presentation guys (I think Dave Pritchet) and a few other producers names who escape me at the moment.. as well as the man himself, Rammer - all chiming in at one point or another on big topics that would have hundreds of replies.
It was around NHL15, NHL16 that things took a turn. Ben continued the good fight, but he was met with countless members who refused to believe what he was saying in some topics just because it ran against what they "believed" to be true about the game. It was absurd. Insanity on full display. I couldn't believe it sometimes and of course those of us who simply tried to explain to those people that they were incorrect were called 'shills' and berated for not 'knowing hockey'.
My favorites were the usual suspects who would pop into some random discussion about whatever issue showed up in the game and they'd be all "Well I've played hockey for 200 years at every level and I've coached the sport for 400 years and I'm ex Military", "I'm a software engineer in my spare time" yadda yadda yadda and "you guys don't know hockey", "Hockey IQ", on and on it went.
Just imagine telling the people who make the game (and some of them had been working on the franchise for 20+ years) that they were wrong about what they were trying to explain and that they didn't even understand fundamental aspects of the sport ( a sport they've spent decades virtualizing on a myriad of platforms) - all because they took an L during a HUT game on a goal they can't defend but always get scored on with.
@KidShowtime1867 I never understood why that kind of negative interaction with the devs was allowed to fester on the old forums. It's not like it was some third-party board where EA had no authority. They could have done a better job at moderating and even banning people who didn't have the capability of disagreeing with someone while still being respectful.
@KlariskraysNHL wrote:@smugxb"Instead of hiding in the corner with your ball, your team should be engaged with the community as well as providing gameplay updates that are sorely needed. All you are doing is pissing off your customers. You are losing trust, not only because of the lack of any sort of meaningful updates, but also because of features (specifically around presentation) that were promised and never delivered."
You see we actually had that until people on these forums attacked the devs because the explanation wasn't what they wanted to hear. The higher ups probably put an end to direct communication and for good reason as things they could say might make them liable or whatever. The FIFA team doesn't bother replying on forums or other places to people.
Amazon Games recently is shifting away from forums and instead making a discord server. This supposedly allows them to have better communication but in reality it just allows for topics to get swept by faster because no real conversation can be read. If people want to act up there it's much easier to just ban people without worry because it isn't on their stuff.
@KlariskraysNHL, with all due respect, I get that, and I do remember when there was more interaction here. However, just because people acted out in egregious ways shouldn't mean that they should just pack up shop and go home. That's why they have forum moderators. You are always going to have people say crazy things online, and some people just like to cause trouble. Unfortunately, that is life in today's age of anonymity on the internet. That should not prevent interaction between the customer and the devs/pm about the direction of the game.
I don't think comparing this forum to another EA forum is appropriate. It seems these teams share similar mindsets when it comes to interacting with the community. So again, just because some trolls came in should not necessitate that all communication on these forums cease to exist. That is just an excuse to not interact.
I'm also not discounting @EA_Aljo and what other mods have done here trying to communicate, but in reality, they are just providing lip service and no real answers. Again, this is a business, not a popularity contest. Put your big boy pants on and face the customers who you are selling your product to.
Community ManagerI agree that our communication can be better. It's also something that not only I am aware of so hopefully, we'll see this improve with future games. However, I'm not sure that we'll see the devs posting here again. Their participation here was something they did outside of their normal duties of creating the game. Often, in off hours. Ben would spend a huge amount of his personal time responding here and going very in depth with game mechanics, but was also regularly told he was wrong. I definitely understand when there are going to be disagreements. That's fine, but the way some people responded just made it feel like all the time and effort they put in just wasn't worth the backlash. Yes, today's age of anonymity means this is going to happen, but that doesn't mean it's ok to be rude to someone trying to be helpful and giving very detailed answers on game mechanics.
I'm more inclined to respond to those with constructive posts. If someone is doing a lot of trash talk, but keeping within the rules, their chances of being taken seriously, having their feedback noted and getting a response are significantly reduced. I look at conversations here as if I were meeting someone in the real world. I'm going to want to engage with someone if they're being cool. Just having a good conversation about a shared interest. If they're complaining, at least it's constructive. Engaging with someone throwing out insults is just rewarding bad behavior. That and they usually don't have anything constructive to say. Constructive feedback is input we can actually use. As opposed to comments like, fix your game or your game sucks, you don't know anything about hockey, etc. I'd rather focus on the ones that actually care enough about improving this game through quality feedback.
