Presentation Removed in NHL 23

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@janikatsu wrote:

@EA_Aljo   I'm not sure if this has been mentioned by others but the removal of the presentation options have also interfered with my gameplay this year. There are multiple times in a game i can't get the line changes that i want because the game runs too fast for me. With the full presentation you could easily change your lines during a replay and now there are times where it only takes 2 seconds from the whistle to the faceoff.

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I’ll second this. I often change my lines, Strategies and Faceoff formations on the fly during cutscenes. It actually king of feels like I’m coaching my team a bit when I do that. Since Hockey is one of the few sports where players are substituted right in the middle of  play pauses in play are a great time to organize your team and add some structure to what is otherwise a chaotic sport. 

I'll third this, I love playing a slow simulation-type game and honestly this year has allowed the most in that. The game feels better on a simulation level than I've ever had it before with my current slider set. It's sadly ruined when I am forced into a line change with a tired group just because it goes from whistle to face off!

Not to mention, some people like myself just enjoy watching replays. I have to manually go into the main menu and break the flow of the game just to watch an AI goal this year, I do hope EA sees how big of a deal this is to the single-player crowd.

Fourth. I must add that this effects online play too presentation is condensed even further. Shorter cuts, and between you loose control and sight of strategies/lines hud, which is already a decade old bug. This leaves almost no time to change lines. Half the time you don’t even see time out cut scene, it’s straight to face off, with totally wrong line on ice.

I’m sorry, the joke is right there so I have to take it. Please don’t let this comment derail this constructive topic.

Even though we no longer have time to quickly change our strategies or lines at whistles, we are not the coach in this game, so we shouldn’t even be worrying about making any changes at all.

Not sure why but my previous post was silently removed. All I stated was that it’s hard to know what constructive criticism is to EA.

90% of the previous thread were lengthy, impassioned posts that were well articulated and vehemently expressed concerns about this presentation decision. 

“burn in hell” and other crossing the line posts were removed as expected and bans issued. I don’t see how the thoughtful, impassioned responses were considered anything other than constructive CRITICISM. After all, it is criticism. 

I really feel like EA didn’t want a 1,000 post response on the front page for all to see, and locked it just shy of that mark. This thread will serve as a continuation but as long as EA is intent on silencing the negative feedback, this will eventually be locked as well, despite the posting content. 

I made mention of Dominos Pizza doing a rebranding where they admitted their faults and look at the company’s success today. Maybe that angered EA when I suggested that they offer more transparency or perhaps some ownership in their mistakes. This isn’t intended to be CRUEL or rude. It’s a simple analysis with an offering of alternative ways to do business when dealing with an impassioned customer base. 

One would think this is exactly what these forums are for. It offers EA a direct line of sight or a finger on the pulse of the customer base regarding feedback, positive or negative.

The heightened activity and post count obviously got EA’s attention, and as @EA_Aljo mentioned they are very well aware of our concerns. 

We appreciate that EA has noticed this, but that appreciation feels in vain when a giant discussion on said topic is locked to eventually be pushed off the first page. By the very nature of locking the thread, it diminishes the obvious importance of this topic to other new site visitors looking to share the same sentiment. They may see this thread, at a dozen posts in total and think “maybe this isn’t a big deal and I’m overreacting” and choose not to comment on it at all.

It’s just deflating to have such an impassioned conversation locked away. Again, the 10% of out of line comments were and could have continued to be removed. Locking the thread for everyone who shared very thoughtful concerns and made valid points feels unfair because of a few errant posters. It’s punishment to all for the actions of a few.

@Redw91 

I’ve never really understood why they lock posts like that instead of just cleaning it up and giving short bans for some to cool off. I understand locking the obvious ones that are about nothing except toxicity, but this one had a lot of good/productive points made. They monitor the new threads made about it anyways, so not sure the difference…

There have been so many good posts the last couple of years that have great discussion get locked out because 2 guys start arguing over who is better or knows more about the game.

@Redw91 

It really wasn't 90% of the posts being constructive and well thought out. Also, one of your posts was removed because it was part of a thread that was removed. It wasn't your post specifically. Had the original thread been as constructive as you mentioned, it would have stayed up. It eventually turned in to a lot of posts that break the rules and was largely non-constructive. It also wasn't really making a difference as again, we know how you all feel. More posts on top of an already lengthy thread isn't going to change that.

As far as being more transparent goes, I tried that with the True Broadcast camera thread. It wasn't as well received as I hoped. Normally, our transparency just results in more toxic responses. Which doesn't give us motivation to be more transparent. 

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Redw91 

As far as being more transparent goes, I tried that with the True Broadcast camera thread. It wasn't as well received as I hoped. Normally, our transparency just results in more toxic responses. Which doesn't give us motivation to be more transparent. 

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I firmly disagree with you saying the responses you received in that thread were “toxic”. You received a lot of appreciation from people for the clarity while they were also expressing the frustration behind the decision. 

Any of the posts you don’t like in that thread would have been as bad or worse had you said nothing. 

I think people are expecting EA to just admit nothing is being changed or added back, and the mods here have said as much, you've just gotta read between the lines.

With this much dissatisfaction and such an uproar, this would've been priority #1 to fix to the dev team IF it was going to be fixed, you don't just start a fire and watch it burn unless your intent was to just let it be in the first place.

Time to just realize this is it for 23, and hope 24 is different 

@EA_Aljo 

I made a comment about this, ironically in a now deleted post. It’s why I was saying to bring in more to help you out with these situations. This isn’t your fault by any means and I’m not implying that at all, but some of the transparency that comes out simply has no logic to it or data to back it up.

This is probably a case of the person giving you the information not being able to reveal the true meaning of why changes were made, but some of the reasoning given over the last couple years are borderline insulting and are clearly put out as an excuse without much thought behind it.

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@kyl_35 wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Redw91 

As far as being more transparent goes, I tried that with the True Broadcast camera thread. It wasn't as well received as I hoped. Normally, our transparency just results in more toxic responses. Which doesn't give us motivation to be more transparent. 

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I firmly disagree with you saying the responses you received in that thread were “toxic”. You received a lot of appreciation from people for the clarity while they were also expressing the frustration behind the decision. 

Any of the posts you don’t like in that thread would have been as bad or worse had you said nothing. 

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The appreciation was great. That doesn't go unnoticed, but you're also not seeing the posts that had to be removed. While we know some people appreciate the transparency, it tends to invite a lot of rude responses. We expect to get them, but hoped for better in this case. Especially with the requests to be more transparent, which we did, but it didn't go over as well as we hoped. I'm not saying we'll never do that again, but as far as an experiment goes, it was met with mixed results. 

@Beauts90 I believe you had a post that was part of a thread that was removed.

I read through every single page of the old thread religiously. I missed nothing, and the sprinkling of badly written off the wall remarks were always removed within 24 hours of posting. 

There was an abundance of appreciation for @EA_Aljo chiming in and letting us know the team was well aware of the feedback. 

I just don’t get the toxicity sentiment being hailed as a reason for the thread lock. It was a catch all for players upset about the decision. It was inherently negative because we are upset about the removal, and the advertised improved presentation meant nothing at the end of the day when presentation as a whole was neutered without the option to change it. The optics on locking discussion on a public outcry are very poor in my opinion. 

moderation exists to remove the bad apples of the group. Not silence the discussion for all, the majority of which were giving well written input on why the decision upset them. 

This thread lock was already highlighted by a member at Operation Sports where it sits at the top of the NHL page with 170 replies and counting, Clearly people elsewhere are taking notice and the overwhelming majority feel like this is an attempt to silence the negative feedback. Op Sports is an active, engaged community so to see EA forum activity highlighted over there with so much attention really speaks to the gravity of the presentation debacle with NHL 23. 

I’ve seen the same sentiment expressed on Reddit and all over YouTube. 

@Redw91 

We're not trying to silence anyone. I get that's how it looks, but that's not the case. That thread had run it's course. It was basically repeating the same thing over and over again along with a lot of negativity towards us. It wasn't really being constructive along the lines of presentation.

While this thread is a lot more civil, it's no longer about presentation. It's about locking the previous thread. So, which is more important? Talking about our handling of that thread or presentation itself? This is what we mean by not being constructive. This really points to the issue not even being about presentation any longer since it's not really being discussed. It's now transitioned to a discussion about the thread being locked. When there is nothing more to say about the topic of the thread and it mainly becomes complaining about the company that makes the game, it's no longer providing feedback we haven't heard before.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@kyl_35 wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Redw91 

As far as being more transparent goes, I tried that with the True Broadcast camera thread. It wasn't as well received as I hoped. Normally, our transparency just results in more toxic responses. Which doesn't give us motivation to be more transparent. 

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I firmly disagree with you saying the responses you received in that thread were “toxic”. You received a lot of appreciation from people for the clarity while they were also expressing the frustration behind the decision. 

Any of the posts you don’t like in that thread would have been as bad or worse had you said nothing. 

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The appreciation was great. That doesn't go unnoticed, but you're also not seeing the posts that had to be removed. While we know some people appreciate the transparency, it tends to invite a lot of rude responses. We expect to get them, but hoped for better in this case. Especially with the requests to be more transparent, which we did, but it didn't go over as well as we hoped. I'm not saying we'll never do that again, but as far as an experiment goes, it was met with mixed results. 

@Beauts90 I believe you had a post that was part of a thread that was removed.

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I can see where you’re coming from, but consider what it looks like…

Every time we’re transparent about the reason for something people get really mad at the reason and poke holes in the logic. So we’re just not going to provide reasons anymore. 

Deleted posts aside, it looks crazy sketchy to make game impacting moves and then not provide any clarity. It makes people even more skeptical about things we’re not told about; and it’s a big reason EA has lost the benefit of the doubt with most people on this board. 

And just to get the thread back on track…

I still haven’t bought the game and likely

won’t until a couple of things are fixed. One of those being Full Presentation coming back. Even then, one thing is certain… 

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@kyl_35 wrote:

I can see where you’re coming from, but consider what it looks like…

Every time we’re transparent about the reason for something people get really mad at the reason and poke holes in the logic. So we’re just not going to provide reasons anymore. 

Deleted posts aside, it looks crazy sketchy to make game impacting moves and then not provide any clarity. It makes people even more skeptical about things we’re not told about; and it’s a big reason EA has lost the benefit of the doubt with most people on this board. 

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This is what I mean when I say people twist our words. This isn't about having holes poked in the logic. It's comments like this that add to our reasoning for limiting what we say here. We try to be more open and transparent, but that gets twisted into something that isn't at all what we were talking about. That and it invites a lot of toxic responses where people just rage at us. That's not constructive at all.

I agree we could be more clear though. I'd like to see our patch notes improve and explain the changes better.

@EA_Aljo When you included in your OP to this thread that “We all want the previous presentation to return” -

Is that speaking for us (in this discussion) or does EA also want to bring this back to the game? It was a really surprising statement and a hopeful one. 

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@kyl_35 wrote:

I can see where you’re coming from, but consider what it looks like…

Every time we’re transparent about the reason for something people get really mad at the reason and poke holes in the logic. So we’re just not going to provide reasons anymore. 

Deleted posts aside, it looks crazy sketchy to make game impacting moves and then not provide any clarity. It makes people even more skeptical about things we’re not told about; and it’s a big reason EA has lost the benefit of the doubt with most people on this board. 

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This is what I mean when I say people twist our words. This isn't about having holes poked in the logic. It's comments like this that add to our reasoning for limiting what we say here. We try to be more open and transparent, but that gets twisted into something that isn't at all what we were talking about. That and it invites a lot of toxic responses where people just rage at us. That's not constructive at all.

I agree we could be more clear though. I'd like to see our patch notes improve and explain the changes better.

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I am not twisting your words. I’m illustrating what message that action would send. 

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@kyl_35 wrote:

I can see where you’re coming from, but consider what it looks like…

Every time we’re transparent about the reason for something people get really mad at the reason and poke holes in the logic. So we’re just not going to provide reasons anymore. 

Deleted posts aside, it looks crazy sketchy to make game impacting moves and then not provide any clarity. It makes people even more skeptical about things we’re not told about; and it’s a big reason EA has lost the benefit of the doubt with most people on this board. 

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This is what I mean when I say people twist our words. This isn't about having holes poked in the logic. It's comments like this that add to our reasoning for limiting what we say here. We try to be more open and transparent, but that gets twisted into something that isn't at all what we were talking about. That and it invites a lot of toxic responses where people just rage at us. That's not constructive at all.

I agree we could be more clear though. I'd like to see our patch notes improve and explain the changes better.

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It isn't twisting your words there in any meaningful sense.  kyl_35 was expressing his impression of what was said and it was clearly understood as such.  In this case you should be less concerned about your words being twisted and more concerned that you did not clearly express yourself originally - which is what was being asked for.  The lack of communication led to an understanding different than intended.  While twisting words is an act of manipulation, this appears to be an act of interpretation.

Stating the same thing more than once is what you want to be doing here.  If customers are interpreting your words in that way you want to iterate and clarify your meaning.  Disengagement makes people less constructive; it is not engaging with them that makes them less constructive.  If they misinterpreted what you say, clarify.  That is dialogue.  If you disengage you are both letting their interpretation dominate and you are essentially stating a power differential and that prompts acting out.  They feel unheard; others feel unheard because you don't engage with them either; and things get less constructive as a result.

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@wsoulia wrote:

4) adding or subtracting teams is great in theory but give us the option to change/create multiple AHL Teams to go with them. Along with that, editing the jerseys, the logos, arenas, etc would make it a true franchise mode. Also let us set the budget as the owner of the franchise. If I want to spend 10x more on coaching and scouting than another teams, I should be able to. And please get rid of Owner goals, some are nearly unattainable.

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That is one thing that is definitely needed, but the bigger issue is that you need a way to create shell teams - no players on them - and then create players you add directly to that team.  That greatly simplifies the ability to staff all those custom teams.  They really ought to allow periodic expansions with shell teams you never fill as well.

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@kyl_35 wrote:

I am not twisting your words. I’m illustrating what message that action would send. 

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Apologies. That's on me for misreading what you're saying. 

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@kyl_35 wrote:

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Redw91 

As far as being more transparent goes, I tried that with the True Broadcast camera thread. It wasn't as well received as I hoped. Normally, our transparency just results in more toxic responses. Which doesn't give us motivation to be more transparent. 

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I firmly disagree with you saying the responses you received in that thread were “toxic”. You received a lot of appreciation from people for the clarity while they were also expressing the frustration behind the decision. 

Any of the posts you don’t like in that thread would have been as bad or worse had you said nothing. 

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The appreciation was great. That doesn't go unnoticed, but you're also not seeing the posts that had to be removed. While we know some people appreciate the transparency, it tends to invite a lot of rude responses. We expect to get them, but hoped for better in this case. Especially with the requests to be more transparent, which we did, but it didn't go over as well as we hoped. I'm not saying we'll never do that again, but as far as an experiment goes, it was met with mixed results. 

@Beauts90 I believe you had a post that was part of a thread that was removed.

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Transparency should not be about the results though imo. It should be something a company prides itself in because it values its customer’s concerns and the overall experience and connection they have with the company .

It is something to aspire for because it will set you apart from other companies that refuse to engage with their customers in an informative and honest manner. The negative replies that have to be removed would be perceived as a necessary evil to tolerate for that greater good. 

i think we could have avoid all this issues if EA was honest to us, all we wanted its more clarification about true broadcast and full presentation just tell us the truth (EA)  we know we won't have them this year just admit it so we could move on,  the majority are mad because we've purchased that game and it feels so incomplete i know i'm repeating myself but what else can i say ? personally if somebody stole me a 100$ by giving me  false advertising for a product that i'd like to buy and find out all he said was a lie i would have done everything to get my money back (but i can't anymore) or even report & file a police report about that person.... so i wish one day you will understand how we feel .

ps: its not about being negative we are just frustrated by how things went since the released of the game .

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@kyl_35 wrote:

And just to get the thread back on track…

I still haven’t bought the game and likely

won’t until a couple of things are fixed. One of those being Full Presentation coming back. Even then, one thing is certain… 

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Update: I bought the game today because I found it on Facebook marketplace for $30