Tips for Defending in '23
Seems like many people have some gripes about defense - myself included. Over the last couple of weeks, I've refined and adjusted defensively, and I feel that I've gotten more comfortable in defendin...
Forum Discussion
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
Community Manager
@KidShowtime1867 wrote:
When we do swap controls to take the puck carrier, we get met with this:
Swapping controls isn't always going to result in this. Of course there are going to be times it happens, but in this case, control was swapped early enough that a poke check could have broken this up. There were also other opportunities in that clip to switch control and potentially defend this. Obviously, we all know you're excellent at defense. Your clips and breakdowns have been fantastic and very much appreciated. I'm not trying to say this is a case of play better D. You're also trying to make the point that it's unfair that offense has players that get in to position. Isn't that what the AI D is doing also though? You can't actually shoot or pass until you have the puck. Even a one timer means holding up on the stick before the receiving player makes contact with it. AI defenders are also getting in position so control can be swapped and manual defense can be performed.
Obviously, we can't manually control 5 players individually at once. We need to have AI players, but using them to play defense for you is pretty clearly relying less on personal skill. We get complaints that there's no skill gap and have taken measures to increase that. Returning defensive actions to AI players would go against this. I'm not saying it will never happen. I hope it doesn't or if it does, I hope there's a way to still keep or increase the skill gap from it somehow. We want as much of the game to be user controlled, but in a game where you have 12 players on the ice and 2 humans controlling them, there's going to need to be a hefty amount of automation.
@EA_Aljo wrote:
@KidShowtime1867 wrote:When we do swap controls to take the puck carrier, we get met with this:
Swapping controls isn't always going to result in this. Of course there are going to be times it happens, but in this case, control was swapped early enough that a poke check could have broken this up. There were also other opportunities in that clip to switch control and potentially defend this. Obviously, we all know you're excellent at defense. Your clips and breakdowns have been fantastic and very much appreciated. I'm not trying to say this is a case of play better D. You're also trying to make the point that it's unfair that offense has players that get in to position. Isn't that what the AI D is doing also though? You can't actually shoot or pass until you have the puck. Even a one timer means holding up on the stick before the receiving player makes contact with it. AI defenders are also getting in position so control can be swapped and manual defense can be performed.
Obviously, we can't manually control 5 players individually at once. We need to have AI players, but using them to play defense for you is pretty clearly relying less on personal skill. We get complaints that there's no skill gap and have taken measures to increase that. Returning defensive actions to AI players would go against this. I'm not saying it will never happen. I hope it doesn't or if it does, I hope there's a way to still keep or increase the skill gap from it somehow. We want as much of the game to be user controlled, but in a game where you have 12 players on the ice and 2 humans controlling them, there's going to need to be a hefty amount of automation.
Aljo, we all know that player switching is spotty at best as well and I swear to you since the last patch it feels even more off. Sometimes there's even a delay between when I take control of a player, and when I can move him. That split second is all it takes. Also, even using the right stick to select a player often times gives you control of a player in the direction you want but only it's the player behind the play. Why can't we have icon player switching?
