NHL 23 summed up in this video

@PlayoffError 

I'm just saying in previous years, this was the case. As far as the current gameplay being good, we've had positive feedback on the overall flow of the game, but of course there are aspects that aren't popular. Defense slowing down too much is a good example of that. Goalies being too good stopping one timers would be another. I'd love to see a tuner, personally, but I wanted to clear up any confusion on why we haven't released many tuners over the last couple of games.

@Sega82mega 

Poking or using the DSS slows you down a lot more than it used to. As far as one timers go, I'm glad they're harder, but I think they could be eased up on a bit. The good thing is that this has gotten me to adjust my own style of play and I'm better for it. It's gotten me better at skating with the puck and recognizing options I didn't look for previously. I've always been good about cycling and working the puck around, but now it's got me forcing passes in to traffic a lot less while I work the puck around and find open players I can set up for better scoring chances.

@EA_Aljo

Sounds like a good weapon against poke spamming. (that poking or using the DSS slows you down a lot more).

But ofc a thin line here, 'you' don't want to nerf defence more then you have to.

But I rather see more cycling by the offensive team, then spamming from the defensive team.

Sounds like good changes to me.

What seem to be worst is the physics (hit bubble) and the puck carriers ability to carry on with the puck, regardless of resistance. (puck magnet). And that, plus the 'speed punish' you get by using pokes and DSS is probebly too much disadvantage for the defence. 

Importen body physics and poke check physics works good, if you put more requirement/responsibility on the defence by penalize spam. Wich makes defense more dependent on body checks and trustworthy puck physics in case of contact. 

And perhaps some tuning on the L't.

I only base this on other's opinion I read about the game.

But all in all, sounds like a game were you need to think a bit more before you get rid of the puck.

@EA_Aljo 

Here's the thing though: I won't speak for others but when I was freaking out about the "week 1 reversion patch" every year, it was because I always enjoyed what you did in the beta and hated that the first patch threw away every change y'all made and turned it back into, essentially, a $90 stat wipe. This year when the team decided "hey, everyone hates when we patch stuff so let's not do anything at all" - the year we absolutely, positively, objectionably NEEDED that patch - It leaves me totally flabbergasted.

Like, it honestly could not have taken the dev team an entire year's worth of time/money/effort to do what we got... That's why I get so heated. Like, instead of just reverting the game back to a previous state or not doing anything at all, I find it weird how the team doesn't want to/can't just sit in a room and discuss ways to making meaningful improvements...


As for the old forum discussions and stuff - I am willing to take some of the blame but not all of it. This was a 50/50 situation that got out of hand. What I got out of most of that was how according to some people, the game was running the way it was supposed to and it was the community that wasn't doing things right (and that my team just needs to "get better"). I would like to suggest the community and dev team start a discussion here under the guise of "aliens are invading earth so we must all set aside our differences for the greater good (of NHL)".

Regardless of all the full sim and arcade stuff, NHL, as a video game, just isn't up to par.

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@TTZ_Dipsy wrote:

This year when the team decided "hey, everyone hates when we patch stuff so let's not do anything at all" - the year we absolutely, positively, objectionably NEEDED that patch - It leaves me totally flabbergasted.

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This.  A thousand times, this.

For me each new NHL game from 16 to 22 brought some kind of positive change to the game.  They weren't perfect.  I didn't necessarily agree with every gameplay change, but they were all generally moving the game in the right direction.  And I never felt that any game was "ruined" by post-beta changes, even changes I didn't feel were 100% correct.

That's why the state of the NHL 23 beta was such a surprise.  No positive ( IMHO ) changes to the gameplay.  Goalies were completely broken and pretty much every defensive tool was either outright made useless or severely nerfed while offensive tools were buffed.  During the beta I was telling teammates that there was no way the release version of NHL 23 was going to be the same as the beta.  There was no way they could look at the state of the game and be satisfied with it.  Boy, do I have egg on my face now.

People not liking changes made post-release to a previous game has nothing to do with what was needed post-release for NHL 23.  That attitude is galling.  People liked BF3, that doesn't give BF 2042 a pass.

I'd almost rather the excuse be that EA poured all their resources in cross-play this year and had nothing left to deal with gameplay changes.  It still wouldn't be a valid excuse, but it would at least not come across as outright insulting.

EA: Y'all like the beta again, huh? Oops! We changed it! Uh oh's!

EA: Wait, y'all DON'T like the beta this year? Well ya shouldn't have asked us not to touch anything the last few years! You played yourself! 

Definitely need an attempt for a fix to this game. Quite frankly I myself feel ripped off for paying full price when the games broken. The tuner isn't even a BETA ! It's technical test and is why many technical issues are being experienced. I wish Ben still worked on the game, since he would have this stuff fixed asap just like in NHL 21. 

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@TTZ_Dipsy wrote:

@EA_Aljo 

Here's the thing though: I won't speak for others but when I was freaking out about the "week 1 reversion patch" every year, it was because I always enjoyed what you did in the beta and hated that the first patch threw away every change y'all made and turned it back into, essentially, a $90 stat wipe. This year when the team decided "hey, everyone hates when we patch stuff so let's not do anything at all" - the year we absolutely, positively, objectionably NEEDED that patch - It leaves me totally flabbergasted.

Like, it honestly could not have taken the dev team an entire year's worth of time/money/effort to do what we got... That's why I get so heated. Like, instead of just reverting the game back to a previous state or not doing anything at all, I find it weird how the team doesn't want to/can't just sit in a room and discuss ways to making meaningful improvements...


As for the old forum discussions and stuff - I am willing to take some of the blame but not all of it. This was a 50/50 situation that got out of hand. What I got out of most of that was how according to some people, the game was running the way it was supposed to and it was the community that wasn't doing things right (and that my team just needs to "get better"). I would like to suggest the community and dev team start a discussion here under the guise of "aliens are invading earth so we must all set aside our differences for the greater good (of NHL)".

Regardless of all the full sim and arcade stuff, NHL, as a video game, just isn't up to par.

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We have released patches. There hasn't been a new tuner though. I'm not saying we will never have one, but the stance on it has been that they shouldn't change due to all the backlash we get for releasing them.

@EA_Aljo

I will try to differentiate between patches and tuners better in the future.

There are still bugs in the game that span back to NHL 10 and because nothing was done this year, I'm pretty sure the team is now averaging less than 1 tuner update a year - that is a travesty. 

You mentioned earlier that HUT doesn't receive nearly as many updates as people assume but there are brand new cards, and events every week/month (yes this is done in advance, but this time/effort could be spent elsewhere), and you pump money into advertising the tournaments and such - Even if that was all automated, it's still way more than everyone else gets. People are going to be watching a real PAID tournament soon too; all the highest OVR players you could possibly buy in HUT definitely help make up for some of the problems, but not all of them. 

It's mid-January now - I don't think the team has ever added a meaningful patch/tuner/update, what have you, this "late" into a game's cycle as it's always "all hands on deck" for the new title, so my best educated guess is everyone has to just deal and hope for '24.

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@EA_Aljo wrote

We have released patches. There hasn't been a new tuner though. I'm not saying we will never have one, but the stance on it has been that they shouldn't change due to all the backlash we get for releasing them.

 So essentially giving feedback is talking into the void and getting nothing or getting a monkey paw version of what you wanted. It's really sad that we can't even get a one sided state of the game address to the community from the dev team. I'm not even asking for an open conversation because it's not gone well in the past and it definitely would be extremely bad for everyone now but someone has to address all the problems with the current game and talk about the future of the series. It feels like the community and the dev team are in a war and everyone is doing everything out of spite(i'm not saying they literally are, just the vibe).

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@CleanHeart wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote

We have released patches. There hasn't been a new tuner though. I'm not saying we will never have one, but the stance on it has been that they shouldn't change due to all the backlash we get for releasing them.

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 So essentially giving feedback is talking into the void and getting nothing or getting a monkey paw version of what you wanted. It's really sad that we can't even get a one sided state of the game address to the community from the dev team. I'm not even asking for an open conversation because it's not gone well in the past and it definitely would be extremely bad for everyone now but someone has to address all the problems with the current game and talk about the future of the series. It feels like the community and the dev team are in a war and everyone is doing everything out of spite(i'm not saying they literally are, just the vibe).

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I agree. I would love to get a state of the game update. It's something I really hope we can do sometime. Regardless, feedback never goes in to a void. People give feedback and expect it to be addressed immediately. That's not normally how it works though. In most cases, when feedback is used, it doesn't happen until a future game.

@EA_Aljo I have some sense of how difficult it can be to be a community manager; so please take what I'm about to write in the spirit of feedback to the larger EA NHL team and not in any way, shape or form aimed at you personally.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

In most cases, when feedback is used, it doesn't happen until a future game.

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This has become increasingly obvious to anyone paying attention, but to hear it stated so bluntly is... well.. a bit shocking, to put it mildly. 

I have 27 years of experience in software development, 15 of which are in senior management and executive positions. This screams of an organization that doesn't understand what customer focus means. We may be gamers, but are first and foremost your customers. We pay for the product you ship - both in purchasing the core game, as well as the EA subscriptions required for online play; as as well as for the (hugely overpriced) micro transactions. Imagine if  I was running a team, and I was shipping a product to customers at premium prices; and then charging them MULTIPLES of that premium price in sale addons. And let's further imagine that my customer base was upset with the quality of the product they were getting; and being quite vocal to my support team. And then imagine that I authorized my front-line support staff to say "feedback noted, why don't you  buy our product again in a year, at the same price, and we will have incorporated some of your "feedback" into next years product'. 

You know what would happen? I would get FIRED. And so would the entire management team. And we would deserve it.

Saying that it takes a year to fix bugs and broken gameplay is nonsense. It takes a year because the team simply doesn't care about the state of the product they're shipping. I've been in similar situations multiple times where customers expressed anger and frustration over a software product; and we had instilled a culture in the various companies where I had worked where this was not acceptable; and the entire team, from leadership to development to qa to support  would do whatever it took to make sure these issues were addressed; dropping whatever we were working on; and doing whatever it took, no matter how long it took, to get it fixed. And that was on software systems and teams MUCH larger and complicated than what NHL is. So please - if the team really wanted to and the management team cared enough, it absolutely does not take a year to fix broken stick-lifts, AI that freezes, black out screens, dropped connections, consistent input lag and the myriad of problems people have been reporting for MONTHS. Yes, code isn't fixed in a few hours. But several months? Ab-so-lu-tely.

I understand the team is fronting a lot of anger from the community - about the countless bugs, about the (perceived or real) broken gameplay. I understand it's not fun to be in that situation. I also understand that the lowly developers and community managers are not the ones making decisions and are paid (poorly) to just be a shield for this anger. But, for the love of all that's holy, the current state of NHL 23 is NOT acceptable and telling your customers it will take a year to address is even less so.


Please convey to your management and leadership team that we're tired of getting treated like suckers and that we will no longer accept EA shipping a broken product while the company rakes in millions of dollars in pre- and post-sales. I can tell you that I will NOT be buying NHL24 until the culture at EA NHL changes. Because until that happens, were just going to get more of the same.

Well that just killed my motivation to continue playing this game! We paid full price for this after all. NHL 23 needs a much needed tuner update for the online portion. With the world gaming championship and the state of this game, the current issues could possibly be a deciding factor on a competitors win or loss...It will be a huge upset if that happens. I just bought the game last week and I'm very disappointed in how things are. The game is already becoming a ghost town, and games get tougher to get each and everyday. I'm D5 matching D3/D2 opponents! How is that fair by any standard? This isn't right to the customer who has to experience this disaster with no obligation from EA to fix these problems that have been reported by the community. 

I really don't know if I want to support this anymore! My 7 year old son has already been done with the game after matching a top HUT player who literally played the most toxic game by using exploits.. Like really? He is back on NHL 21 since it was more enjoyable compared to now! Waiting for a future game to fix these issues is in bad taste! It's a complete slap in our consumers faces! EA should make a statement of the state of this game asap! Let us know what is going on... This is pathetic to leave this such a disaster! 

Wholeheartedly agree with this! I work as a technician/sales associate in electronics. Say someone buys a PC or electronic device for a hefty price. They go home to find it not working properly and bring it back. It is then my job to find a solution to the problem and fix it... If it has to get sent to a higher end I let them know! Am I going to give it back to them unfixed? Nope! That customer paid for it, and it wasn't their own fault why that product was broken. 

NHL 23 is a product charged at full price! Leaving it at its current state is unreasonable and poor customer service! Any other business that did this would cease to exist or get any support from the public. Making excuses just fuels the fire, and makes the customer upset even more... If EA wants to have support and increase sales, they need to do something! I get pushing ahead NHL 24! Although that is a future product, not current! It's like re-calling a vehicle without fixing, and then being like oh well you have no wheels, and will have to wait until next year! Not a great look tbh

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Sega82mega 

Poking or using the DSS slows you down a lot more than it used to. 

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Which actually makes a lot of sense, because--unless they are lugging the puck--NHL players are not able to effectively play hockey using both their sticks AND their legs .  This is why you always hear defensive coaches yelling from the bench "Hey guys, don't use your sticks!"

@Mordecus 

The reason why a lot of changes are saved for a future game are due to the side effects they often create. You being experienced in software development most likely understand how fixing one issue can cause more. That's especially apparent with the complexities of a game that is extremely physics heavy. There are multiple systems involved so often, when something is fixed, there's a lot more work to do in other areas of the game as a result. This takes time to properly develop and test. 

Also, when patches are released, they normally have multiple issues addressed. The team works on a bunch of them at once and then releases an update. They don't just address one issue and release an update. They have to work through all the issues in a planned update. That means development time plus testing as well as waiting for certification from the Xbox/PlayStation. It would be different if we were releasing the game on our own online platform, but when going through 1st party providers, there's much more involved process. So, instead of waiting for this approval for every individual bug that gets fixed, they are all included in one batch and then submitted for certification. 

I get that a lot of people think game development and QA is an easy process and we can basically do whatever we want, but that's really not even remotely the case.

So let me get this right! We aren't getting a fix to the numerous issues that have been submitted with video to fix the state of this game? EA should give us half our money back then since this was charged at full price for a broken product that isn't going to be fixed! Even a statement from the company at this point would show at least some compassion towards us customers... In Canada many of us paid over $100 for this! How by any standard is this acceptable? Maybe the company needs to provide some focus on 23 instead of the current production which is NHL 24? Guess my time supporting EA NHL has come to an end until something changes! What happened to the time where previous games had the team working on the clock to fix these reported problems? They would take servers offline for maintenance! Now we hardly see it and it's showing! Not cool! 

In-game issues that need adjusting aside, what about quality of life issue fixes? Especially issues that have been going on for years? Menu navigation continues to be a chore. The dressing room can easily glitch out. This year more than others. How about fixing the end of game replay glitch? How about fixing the end of game loss glitch? How about fixing the loadout menu glitch? Etc..

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@KIJHLPhenom14 wrote:

So let me get this right! We aren't getting a fix to the numerous issues that have been submitted with video to fix the state of this game? EA should give us half our money back then since this was charged at full price for a broken product that isn't going to be fixed! Even a statement from the company at this point would show at least some compassion towards us customers... In Canada many of us paid over $100 for this! How by any standard is this acceptable? Maybe the company needs to provide some focus on 23 instead of the current production which is NHL 24? Guess my time supporting EA NHL has come to an end until something changes! What happened to the time where previous games had the team working on the clock to fix these reported problems? They would take servers offline for maintenance! Now we hardly see it and it's showing! Not cool! 

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We have released 4 patches so far. I'm not saying we're done. I'm just saying that it's possible some things will have to wait for a future game.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Mordecus 

Also, when patches are released, they normally have multiple issues addressed. The team works on a bunch of them at once and then releases an update. They don't just address one issue and release an update. They have to work through all the issues in a planned update. That means development time plus testing as well as waiting for certification from the Xbox/PlayStation. It would be different if we were releasing the game on our own online platform, but when going through 1st party providers, there's much more involved process. So, instead of waiting for this approval for every individual bug that gets fixed, they are all included in one batch and then submitted for certification. 

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This makes the decision to omit tuner updates (thus, bypassing Microsoft/Sony certification for core gameplay changes) even more questionable.

I understand not all gameplay changes can be done via tuner, but surely there are steps that can be taken via tuners to address some issues, specifically puck retention while LTing like a ballerina, adjustments to poke check effectiveness on player speed, etc. 

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Mordecus 

Also, when patches are released, they normally have multiple issues addressed. The team works on a bunch of them at once and then releases an update. They don't just address one issue and release an update. They have to work through all the issues in a planned update. That means development time plus testing as well as waiting for certification from the Xbox/PlayStation. It would be different if we were releasing the game on our own online platform, but when going through 1st party providers, there's much more involved process. So, instead of waiting for this approval for every individual bug that gets fixed, they are all included in one batch and then submitted for certification. 

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This makes the decision to omit tuner updates (thus, bypassing Microsoft/Sony certification for core gameplay changes) even more questionable.

I understand not all gameplay changes can be done via tuner, but surely there are steps that can be taken via tuners to address some issues, specifically puck retention while LTing like a ballerina, adjustments to poke check effectiveness on player speed, etc. 

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The reason for not having tuner updates is a different issue. That was based on community feedback.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Mordecus 

Also, when patches are released, they normally have multiple issues addressed. The team works on a bunch of them at once and then releases an update. They don't just address one issue and release an update. They have to work through all the issues in a planned update. That means development time plus testing as well as waiting for certification from the Xbox/PlayStation. It would be different if we were releasing the game on our own online platform, but when going through 1st party providers, there's much more involved process. So, instead of waiting for this approval for every individual bug that gets fixed, they are all included in one batch and then submitted for certification. 

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This makes the decision to omit tuner updates (thus, bypassing Microsoft/Sony certification for core gameplay changes) even more questionable.

I understand not all gameplay changes can be done via tuner, but surely there are steps that can be taken via tuners to address some issues, specifically puck retention while LTing like a ballerina, adjustments to poke check effectiveness on player speed, etc. 

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The reason for not having tuner updates is a different issue. That was based on community feedback.

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Oh right. The META adored by HUT bunnies and "influencers" cannot be messed with. I forgot ☹️