I'm curious to get people's appreciation about NHL 23. The review on Xbox is 1.6 Stars and I see a lot of people quitting the game on the Forum.
Personally I think this the worst version of the game. Not sure what EA was trying to accomplish with this but just bring back NHL14 with todays visuals if you don't want to invest on this franchise anymore.
@Raven969 Personally, as someone that’s played the games since the very beginning with what was called EA Hockey in 1991 here in the UK, I have to say that 23 for the vast majority is very solid. Bear in mind I just play offline and have barely played any online modes on these games since around 2015 when a mate who would win 99% of online games lost most against me because of my toe drags and dekes 😆
I’m genuinely curious as to why you think it’s the worst of the series. I have literally owned and played them all and I’d point to the early PS1 games of 97 and 98 as the worst. It seems fashionable for people to bash the latest game. A lot look back at 14 fondly but in fact at the time, it was bashed a lot in much the same way 23 is now.
Just my opinion, remember
23 is probably the worst modern NHL - Normally, there would be at least 1 thing semi-decent added but I think there are only negatives with this years iteration.
You can change the offline game to how you want it via sliders so I'm not really sure those players keep buying the game but for HUT/EASHLers, what you see is what you get; they basically stopped tuner updates so my team disbanded
@drewgriffiths wrote:@Raven969 Personally, as someone that’s played the games since the very beginning with what was called EA Hockey in 1991 here in the UK, I have to say that 23 for the vast majority is very solid. Bear in mind I just play offline and have barely played any online modes on these games since around 2015 when a mate who would win 99% of online games lost most against me because of my toe drags and dekes 😆
I’m genuinely curious as to why you think it’s the worst of the series. I have literally owned and played them all and I’d point to the early PS1 games of 97 and 98 as the worst. It seems fashionable for people to bash the latest game. A lot look back at 14 fondly but in fact at the time, it was bashed a lot in much the same way 23 is now.
Just my opinion, remember
Online is a broken, buggy, exploit competition where skating backwards with the puck is a key skill to have to be competitive.
Offline is unplayable because the AI doesn't try to take the puck away from you or try to stop you from getting close to their goal, which is a pretty big part of hockey.
@Jagavekov I disagree regarding offline play. I’d be able to find so many examples each game where they attempt to stop you. Of course there’s many variables as to how the AI should defend and what they should do and one instance where AI need to improve is when you’re in position to outskate the AI going into their zone on either wing. They seem to allow you to get into such position and they don’t seem sure of what to do next so they end up doing nothing
Online… I’ll take your word for it. It doesn’t mean anything to me if I don’t play online
Just remember we are stating opinions.
@drewgriffiths wrote:@Jagavekov I disagree regarding offline play. I’d be able to find so many examples each game where they attempt to stop you. Of course there’s many variables as to how the AI should defend and what they should do and one instance where AI need to improve is when you’re in position to outskate the AI going into their zone on either wing. They seem to allow you to get into such position and they don’t seem sure of what to do next so they end up doing nothing
Online… I’ll take your word for it. It doesn’t mean anything to me if I don’t play online
Just remember we are stating opinions.
It is not opinion that the AI offline is far too passive, it is fact. Whether it is unplayable or not may be your opinion, as some people are better able to ignore how the game doesn't resemble hockey other than the graphics and the names on the Jerseys.
Here is a post with video clips of the AI being horrible and too passive:
I'm on the same page as @TTZ_Dipsy. Online ( EASHL in particular ) is in the worst place I've seen it since before the introduction of the skill stick. Goalies are incredibly weak in scenarios where they should be strong ( eg extreme-angle short-side shots ). Defensive tools are terribly inconsistent and in cases like stick-lift just flat out terrible.
The consensus on my club is that the flaws in NHL 23 have given us a highly frustrating game experience where most of the time, win or lose, it feels like the team that wins does so because the broken mechanics went in their favor and not because they were necessarily the better team. "We won because their goalie gave up two goals on shots from the corner and put one in his own net trying to cover a loose puck." or "We lost because our AI winger took three unforced penalties", etc. Yes, there are games where we just outplay our opponent and win or get outplayed and lose, but the majority of the games feel like we just have to hope it's not our goalie giving up a few weak goals or its not our poke-checks that just act like passes for the other team. Wins don't feel rewarding and losses are frustrating when it all feels arbitrary.
Top it all off with EA feeling like gameplay is fine as it is so no tuners or gampleay updates are necessary and there's not much to look forward to with this game. Last night around 8 PM EST we spent 15 minutes searching for an EASHL club 3s game with cross-play turned on. We don't normally have those kind of wait times until the dog-days of summer. The game's only been out two months and it feels like it's already dead.
Cross-play was a big addition this year, but the gameplay is in a worse state than last year and people are giving up on the game or not playing much. I only play EASHL and the broken and unforgiving stick lifts are terrible. The goalie save frequency for cross-crease and one-timers is ridiculous and sucks the fun out of the game. High scoring chances like that should be rewarded more often like in previous years. Those chances are happening because mistakes were made by the other team. Punish the mistakes and reward the nice plays. The goalie should not be bailing out the team on those kinds of chances often.
It is very frustrating being a fan of this series as EA never seem to get it right. Things that should be obvious for them to fix/tune are left unattended. There are always major issues from year to year that keep people from playing. If they fixed these issues, people would play more and more players would return and recommend the game to new players.
Such a shame that cross-play has been wasted this year on a poor effort of a game. This could have been the year that the community really started to grow again. Now the excitement is gone and more people continue to give up on the game. EA messed up.
