Stick lift guaranteed penalty.
The pokecheck is alot better than it was. You still have players who just hold the pokecheck button down and skate around the ice like that. Thought that was supposed to be fixed. The stick lift is...
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@17ZxxzxxZ17 As I was one of the players skating around with the poke check button down at times (don't hate the player!), and I can assure it's not half as effective anymore. It fees that now you lose a lot more speed, and it's not as guaranteed to poke the puck. Also poking seems to be toned down a ton, and I totally agree with the change. Much better now!
What I don't understand is the logic by which you lose the puck to the stick clipping through players. Sometimes that knocks the puck off and sometimes it doesn't. I'm trying to find the consistency in this mechanic and I've failed so far. When I'm defending, I try to clip through the opponent's stick and it works a lot of the time, except when it doesn't, and reviewing various instances of this has left me confused.
The only logical conclusion I can come to is that clipping through a player's stick greatly increases the likelihood of knocking the puck off that player's stick, but whether that does occur is ultimately determined by the attributes. So it's a combination of clipping through the stick and both players' attributes that determine whether the puck gets knocked off the stick. Can a developer confirm this?
Some may disagree, but I honestly think EA has stick checking as good as it’s been in years as far as punishment for the spammers, and reward for the actual skilled Dmen, there’s finally a nice skill gap.
There is such a noticeable difference now between D that know what they are doing, and ones who have been carried by the fact they could poke spam with no penalty in previous years. That being said, I honestly think penalties need to be bumped up a bit when poking from the side or behind players, because tripping penalties have been almost non existent so far, and I’ve even found myself in situations where I should have taken a tripping penalty but didn’t.
Stick lifts are another skill gap thing, I have had pretty good success with them without taking penalties, but I usually mainly use them in situations where I’m in a foot race and stick lift them last second before they get the puck, as opposed to stick lifting when they already have possession.
I think some people who don’t like it, need to realize that this is a big skill level change to playing D, and one that was actually needed and it’s going to take time for people to readjust to it. 2-3 months down the road, I think people will appreciate it more and will be better for the overall gameplay.
The main thing that’s concerning to me is that most players haven’t unlocked truculence yet, and when they do, it will be in full force because it’s far easier to just use truculence rather than play a stick checking style that requires more skill now, when you can just get full hit assistance from truculence and not worry about it. I really think truculence was the worst addition that’s ever been made into the NHL series and the fact it’s still brokenly OP after all the complaints last year, and instead of nerfing it, they nerf stick checking instead??? It’s mind blowing the people running the show making the decisions for this franchise
- @TITAN_NHL I kind of agree based on what I've seen so far, but your message seems a little one-sided. You care about OP traits yet make no mention of Close Quarters which sometimes results in successful shots on net despite good defense. You care about poke spamming which they've now fixed to some extent, yet the L2 spam and the hustling through sticks and bodies aren't a problem.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the skill gap on defense is now apparently greater and you have to be smarter, more patient, and time your defensive moves properly. I'm glad I'm getting burned by good forwards whenever I fall back on NHL 22 style defense. The balance doesn't seem right though. The game should always reward you for outplaying a defenseman, and conversely for outplaying a forward.
