Offline Player Perspective
Hey everyone, recently got the game and wanted to share my thoughts as an offline-only player. Didn't see any active threads so figured I'd just start a new one to hopefully get some discussion and input from other players. Overall I'm really disappointed with the design decision to not let us change coaching strategies in Franchise mode this year, ESPECIALLY considering the bug around new coaches' strategies not replacing your original coaches' and an inability to change strategies in-game. Just seems like a huge middle finger considering the 1-3-1 power play strat finally being put in the game and included in the hype video. Anyway, I digress. Here's what I got after my first several hours of gameplay. Note that I play on full-sim, superstar and 6/6 AI difficulty.
- I've only played a few games and haven't messed with sliders much but the game just has all the same issues as last year. Cpu does nothing but force the puck to the slot and your AI does nothing to prevent it, they still score on like 30% of their shots, they still do zone entries like it's a game of hot potato, still had to turn all the penalty sliders way up cuz on default the cpu hadn't taken a penalty in the first 3 games I played before making a change...
- Players still feel exactly the same (as in, aren't differentiated from other players). Last game I played Phillip Kurashev was dangling every time he touched the puck like he's McDavid.
- My guys still routinely let passes go by or even get out of the way when you're passing to them... Can't count the number of slot passes where players in perfect one time position will lift their skate so the puck can go to the point instead. How has pass assist still not been fixed to default to the closest player if two players are in a straight line of each other??
- Unless a line's strategy is crash the net, nobody goes to the net front, even when pucks go back to the point.
- Fights for rebounds and net-front positioning is still extremely unrealistic and favors the CPU so heavily. CPU dmen seem to get insane acceleration, reaction time and body checking to clear out players regardless of size/strength. They also routinely pick up pucks they're not even facing, reaching behind themselves or just skating backwards so the pucks on their stick to prevent your player from having any chance of getting to it. Meanwhile, when you're defending, their forwards seem to be able to clip through bodies and sticks to get full possession of pucks and get full power and accuracy on shots they have no business getting to.
- CPU still doesn't pokecheck or use the d skill stick and still only dives/blocks the exact moment you make contact with the puck so any kind of fakes are still complete useless. Goalies also still don't react to fake shots at all and all play very passively and deep in their nets. Real goaltenders have to come out and challenge shooters. This is what makes east/west plays so effective. In chel, the goalie is almost always right on their goal line yet still have the reaction time to save most shots. In real life it's a double edged sword. Also goalies still routinely let loose pucks, missed passes, dump-ins whatever come into them and kick out a rebound to the net-front instead of just covering the puck... Speaking of rebounds, the physics are still completely bonkers where pucks hit a goalie anywhere and never go further than the blue paint.
- Just feels like every AI player reacts in exactly the same way in a situation every time. I think this leads to a very stale gameplay experience.
Hope this can be a good start to some constructive conversations on how gameplay can be meaningfully improved and if anyone has any sliders they feel have addressed some of these issues I'd love to try them out.
