Community Manager
@rsandersr47 wrote:
@EA_AljoCan you be more specific as to what is misinformation? I can pull articles.
The last game added..
Cross play.. but it was only half done. There are also posts about how the two games don't behave the same.. so I would suggest that means it's broken..
Added female skaters to HUT.. that's more of a roster update rather than anything new..
Updated the presentation.. what was added was extremely over hyped and upset a lot of people.
Last chance puck movement (was Zegras flip added this year or last?) .. this was the big animation addition. I see it once every few games..
Made stick lifts pointless to try.. no updates were made, you've admitted to this in the past.
We still have constant dressing room kicks, freezing when leaving the dressing room, getting randomly booted in eliminator is still around..
Cross play is not broken. It was the same way in FIFA as well. It's entirely possible this is going to expand after its initial introduction.
I see last chance puck movement in almost every game.
I said stick lifts are being investigated. I'm in agreement they need to be tuned better, but I've also gotten used to them and don't take penalties often now.
Not everyone gets kicked from the dressing room. I haven't had that happen once yet. I'm not saying there's no problem, but not everyone has the same issues.
I hate the issue with presentation as well. Hopefully, it returns. It was not intended to be removed, but had to be.
To the broader community, anything less than full crossplay is going to be seen as "broken" - while not technically correct, it's sorta just the accepted buzzword. I don't personally think full crossplay with consoles will change much but I guess we'll see.
I only started seeing last chance things happening in the last few games I played about a month ago and they just kept happening - it was so jarring and I felt like it was messing up what I was trying to do (like I couldn't even get hit properly if that makes any sense).
Stick lifts have always needed tuning -- after getting 5 penalties in a row a few years back I decided to never stick lift again - best thing I've ever done, NHL-wise.
Never once gotten booted from the dressing room due to any error? I honestly can't believe that; you need to buy a lotto ticket lol.
While I don't get booted too too often, there is a constant need for my buddy and I to exit WoC/reset/manually leave the dressing room because it feels like matchmaking freezes up and/or *something* weird is happening.
Community Manager
We see a lot of claims that the game is broken and unplayable, yet those same accounts have hundreds or more games played on them. When a game is broken, you can't play it. I get that it's a buzzword, but it's also highly inaccurate and gets used most often when something happens that someone doesn't like. Stick lifts are another example. They are working as intended. They aren't broken. This is the same with crossplay. Could they both be improved? Absolutely. The limited crossplay in 23 was a very big feat. I think it's better to get some crossplay in rather than none. It's also good to learn from its implementation to help with fully adding it in the future.
In 23 I can't recall getting kicked from the dressing room. I don't know what magical combination my friends and I have, but we encounter almost 0 errors. There have been a couple times one of them were changing gear or editing loadouts in the dressing room and that's known to cause this problem, but it's extremely uncommon with us.
I don't know if connections have anything to do with it, but I haven't disconnected or gotten the unexpected error issue this year in WoC and haven't disconnected in HUT. Not that I recall at least. We haven't had to reset the dressing room either. It's always relatively easy to get matched. However, I also have a very solid connection. Again though, I'm not saying there are no issues. The team is aware of these reports so hopefully, we'll see improvements at some point.
I can definitely understand why so many are unhappy with the performance of the game and it certainly has bugs to fix, tuning to be done and general issues, but to say the whole game is broken and unplayable is just not correct. Unless there's a very specific part of the game that makes you not want to play it. For example, if the lack of full crossplay makes you not want to play, then you'll deem it to be unplayable, but that doesn't mean it is for everyone. As an example, I don't play our new golf game due to multiplayer not being turn based. It's not unplayable though. I just lose a ton of the fun factor without it.
@EA_Aljo wrote:Stick lifts are another example. They are working as intended. They aren't broken.
The best part.
@RSall14 wrote:
@EA_Aljo wrote:Stick lifts are another example. They are working as intended. They aren't broken.
The best part.
The hate for stick lifting in its current state is comparable to the change to poke check that required more responsible use: Those who don't take the time to understand the nuance that EA wants you to respect (positioning, location of your stick) will insist it's 'broken' while the rest of us understand it needs to be used sparingly and only when you're absolutely certain your chances of getting a penalty are low..
This opens the ice up more as people are no longer able to resort to a stick lift from behind when they've been outplayed. Previously, you could steal the puck from someone and all they needed to do was mash stick-lift and suddenly the puck carrier stops skating while his stick is lifted, allowing the beaten defender to simply regain the puck from an incredibly unrealisitic play.
Something to remember: stating that we know to use it sparingly and only in certain situations is not confirmation that we think it's perfect. I'd like to see the action be more dynamic based on the pressure being put on the stick-lift button, and I'd also like to see puck carriers retain puck possession (by way of a small 'battle' animation) more often versus just handing out a penalty every time.
“Unplayable” is another one of those buzzwords that isn’t 100% factually correct, but technically true. If there is a part of the game that does have an annoying bug/feature and it causes me to play the game less and less to a point I’m just turning it on to see if I can get any enjoyment out of it, I think it’s fair to call it “unplayable.”
I would completely agree that the updates to the actual on ice gameplay each year are pretty minimal. Not that I’m saying that a complete overhaul is needed or that the game is as bad as some make it out to be, but I feel like there is so much more that can be done to improve it.
It’s not as noticeable online because sliders can’t be adjusted, so they can essentially release a tuner every year and it feels like a new game.
And I only bring this up because when features like last chance puck and the Zegras assist are introduced we always hear “it’s hockey how, much can you change?” But I will not stop beating this drum that all defensive stick checks should be controlled by the right joystick. I want to see all pokes, stick lifts, slashes and hooks being controlled by the joystick. Even tips in a player lock or 6’s scenario. Open ice battles and board play also need reworked in my opinion as well as a number of higher things.
