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.
“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.
