Help me understand: AI Goalies in Rookie/Pro/Sem-Pro

Agreed, this is especially bad in Squad Battles. It doesnt' matter who's in the opposing goal or what the difficulty is, they are good. Paired with the AI defence whihc blocks almost all passes around the goal... it's funny how no matter what pass you try, it almost always goess straight to the CPU d-man's stick or legs... almost like it was programmed to do that.

The consequence is that there's no point in trying to make good plays. If you want to score and win, all you need to do is just circle around and look sure goa chance. So circle around the goal and bury it far side, or dangle until you get alone with the goalie, left-right-left and score, or scate from the side across the goal and shoot farside top corner. Easiest way to create these opportunities is dump the puck, take control of the winger on the opposiing side and meet the puck around the goal line at the side, and then proceed to score as above. Rinse and repeat. You sure take the fun out of the game...

Scoring true hockey goals is made even harder, because your AI players hardly ever are around the goal to deflect the puck of to shoot rebounds. And if they're there, all they seem to do is get bound by the CPU player, or just be out of position to do anything worthwile, OR they skate straight into your guy for some reason... I just don't get what the AI is trying to do for you. You do get these occasinal flashes where they're doing the right thing, but whenever you get a good crosscrease one timer thing, the CPU goal just saves it like it wasn't anything special. So why bother with trying to create anything?

And of course your OWN goali lets in easy shots. It's normal to have shots like 9 to 40 in your favour, and you just barely win. And CPU passing is 98.8%🤒

I have the same exact issue, I'm so glad you posted this 'cause now I don't feel so crazy lol.

I'm just trying to do some ROOKIE challenges, and it's like I'm facing the lovechild of Hasek, Brodeur, and Roy... I normally play on Superstar, and am pretty good PVP, yet I get infuriated by rookie AI??? It's so absurd to me that this random no name goalie is going cross-crease to save a one timer and flaring his glove up to snag it like the greatest goalie of all time. Hard enough as is to have shots consistently blocked/passes consistently intercepted by the rookie AI defense... meanwhile my guys, none lower than an 83 base Aho, can't even receive a saucer pass.

I want realism in these games, I want less cheese, I want better AI goalies... but we don't need all that set to max in ROOKIE lol. I'm not saying every shot should go in, but a cross-crease one timer from Aho to 83 X-Factor Stamkos probably should go in at least 10% of the time right? 'Cause that's about the current odds for me lol

I agree! As I said in another post...

I've just seen and heard too many people struggle with goalies even in game modes that should basically be just for fun. It's just one more thing to make life difficult for those who are a little less good or who play less often. We all know the elite players and streamers have been complaining about cross crease for a long time... Lots of changes to please these players, and yet for offline players and average players, virtually no change, no improvement. We can clearly see the tendency to appeal to a very restricted group of players while the average player is increasingly left out. Occasionally, it's good to listen to the opinion of players who are a little less talkative but still a good part of the player base.

I had really fun game yesterday, Ben Bishop at the CPU goal was demi-god, after two periods I had 46 shots on him, and I finally managed to score on him after two consecutive rebounds!!! I threw everything and the kitchen sink at him without succcess before that... semi-breakaways, wrap arounds, masked deflections etc. No dice, bud.

At the opposite end, my 87 Vasilievsky let in two first (and only) shots in the first period. Great fun! 🤒

Also, recently it seems that the faster players I get (speeds 90+) the harder time I have burning these slow CPU dmen with low AVR. They just glide backwards stick extended as fast as you can hustle, and when you actually get past them, they throw this huge hit that crushes your player....so the better your team gets, the more boost the CPU gets, right? This is an old theory that's been around for years... maybe I should lower my team AVR to 82 or lower again, could make SB more playable?

@Sgt_KelsoLearn when to tap RB to push the puck up and you can make the AI step up and burn by them. Also try not to skate a straight line and instead slightly go at an angle and they are less likely to get you.

As for scoring it's pretty easy in SB. Granted it is the same 3 goals over and over.

https://gameclips.io/Follisimo/5955a0ac-2b7c-4d21-99f6-ccccd2a86d9f

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/MFCZXAVQ

I got like 5 ways I score over and over and over.  And it's not from doing 1T's or even LTing.

All the developers are trying to do is appease those who don’t want to take the time to learn how to defend properly because I know in previous NHL iterations I was almost never scored on cross crease or any of the so called cheap ways of scoring that used to exist in those older games. So now all that is happening is the developers decided to take the responsibility of defending away from the players and simply make the goalie unstoppable instead so everyone can believe they’re the best because in todays world everyone is a winner regardless of merit. even in offline modes with the sliders turned way down backup goalies are making unreal saves when I have them dead to rights with a wide open net so these goalie changes are across the board for every game mode in this game and it’s a shame because I barely play online modes.

Is there anyway to fix this with slider? I'm a newbie to the Nex-Gen NHL games I played 22' for free and loved it so I got 23' and I'm playing on Semi-Pro and the Defense and Goalies are just insane.