Anybody like this game so far?
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...
Forum Discussion
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.
- @BassMan_PC I keep saying this but it's clearly all in who's making the big decisions, and the guys spending the money. This dev team has shown what they can do and I believe they are just being hung out to dry because so long as HUT packs sell, the investors tell the managers they can't spend, and then since littman left, whoever is making the final decisions is just not making any good ones. It seems he's making decisions to please his bosses, not the customers or fans. That's a problem.
EASHL 6s only player. I enjoy the game for the most part. Stick Lift needs addressed for being a penalty button is my only real gripe when it comes to EASHL.
