2 years ago

Does EA Not Want Anyone to Actually Play Online?

As I am writing this I am watching my dressing room cross the 2:00 mark on a projected 0:43s estimated wait time. This is my 3rd dressing room and the host has already had to search for opponents twice. Any other online game the user experience is basically: Select a game mode> 5-10s wait>placed in a lobby>game starts in under 60 seconds. This even applies to battle royale games with 50+ players.

Every NHL game for the past 5 years (this one so far being the worst but it's only been a few days) the user experience is: Load World of Chel>30s wait time for the menu to appear>select game mode>search for lobby>15-30s wait>find 2-4 teammates>wait 2:30>host searches again for opponents>wait 2:30>players leave>start over>wait 2:00 to find opponents>game starts in 30s.

The fun doesn't just pertain to finding a game. After the game ends, the player progression/rewards screen takes 30-45s to load. How? Why? Not once has the player progression page loaded iinside of 15s. It takes a full minute to exit a game, go back to the dressing room where 2 players have already closed Chel bc it's faster and 1-2 are still in the postgame so you have to leave the dressing room. When you leave the dressing room, the EA logo spins in the upper right corner for another 30s before the menu is available. Even in Pro AM where the variable of other players is eliminated it takes 30s+ for player progression to load and then another 30s-1:00 for the main menu to load after.

This honestly feels like an intentional strategy on the part of EA to limit the amount of games you can play to reduce play fatigue and increase the life cycle of the game. It's like mobile games where they place a timer on key components so you can only play for a few minutes at a time so that you do not complete the entire game quickly and they can retain players longer. If the solution to increasing play sessions and player longevity is to intentionally stall load screens and make it difficult to get into a game that is insane. The alternative of course is that EA is the only company on the planet that cannot figure out a basic menu and online matchmaking system. I can't convince my friends to buy NHL24 and play anymore because they all quit during NHL22 or 23 when we would get together for 2-3hrs a night and only manage to play 3 games.

world of chel

14 Replies

RavenAkaStL
Seasoned Traveler
2 years ago
^ This. I've been trying to get my first drop in game in NHL 24 for some 2h now! It searches for (and usually finds) teammates for 2-3 minutes, then switches to 'searching for opponents' and does that for a minute or two and then cancels the search... every... single... time.
Then, trying to search again, already have a full team (aside from the G and no one with brain-cells wants a random G in 3on3) and yet, it's 'searching for teammates' for 3 minutes and then fails to find opponents again after 1-2 minutes... It's unreasonably bad. I don't know how much stuff is tailored to North-American users, but in Europe, while there are players, there aren't anywhere near as many as in NA. If this was NHL 23, I would've had no trouble finding a bunch of games by now.
Symtexbc
New Scout
2 years ago
13min waiting and o game found and canceling search doesn't work
oofunkdoctaoo
Seasoned Rookie
2 years ago
They want you to play hut
Margera09
Seasoned Veteran
2 years ago
@oofunkdoctaoo

Yeah, no thanks. 😃
lx3dEMONxl
New Adventurer
2 years ago
@maskdman3 Same. I have not been able to play a drop-in 6s game this weekend at all. Spent 15 minutes trying to find an opponent only to have it cancelled after the 5 min timer. I gave up. I was able to drop-in 3s a bunch without issue. I don't like 3s though. Prefer 6s.
Tigidooh
Rising Ace
2 years ago
I don't get it either, it would (during this last week end) take 30s - 1 minutes to find teammates to fills our side then it switch to ''search for opponent'' ....and dam* it goes on for 3 - 5 minutes minimum...
I dont get how everytime it make my side get 5-6 players in 45 sec but take so long to find another team.....is my team always the ONLY ever full team looking for opponent or what? There's clearly something broken right now.

Not talking about how many times a friend of mine was getting stuck behind in the dressing room while only the host could join the match-up which mean reseting everything over and over again.

Also why can't we change build during the ''Searching for opponent''? I usually pick ''skater'' to ease the match up but if while my team is filling up and there's a RW, LW and C joining then I know I'll be sent on D......then if my build is on Playmaker I can't switch it right away to my defensive build. ONLY once the full match-up with an opposing team is done with only 25sec left before it start that you're allowed to switch build, thats ridiculous.....don't take your eyes off the screen cause you might miss it...
lx3dEMONxl
New Adventurer
2 years ago
Update: I found that my search settings default to use best game location. When I set this to "Relaxed" I was able to find games a little faster. It still takes a LONG time to get in a game, but it did improve my situation. In the past this setting defaulted to Relaxed. I am on the western part of the US and I have found that when I use best game location, my latency is super good but it takes forever to find games. If relaxed, I find games fast in exchange for a little bit higher latency,
Tigidooh
Rising Ace
2 years ago
@lx3dEMONxlFirst thing I look every time I join a dressing room are the settings, I'm always using relaxed and it was still taking several minutes to find a match up....and I specify ''match up'' because finding teammates to your team always goes fairly fast.....it's when it come to find another team to face off the issue seems to come from.

And you are very right, I noticed that too this weekend when somebody else was the host, almost every single time it was set to ''yes'' to use best game location. Guess most poeples doesnt pay attention to their setting :/
But nonetheless it was still taking way too long on relaxed.

I got myself in a club through drop in, we stayed together for the next game, the search time was something like 19 sec.....the game after back in normal drop in, 55 sec. the average time showed is not true though, it's much longer than that.

Probably it's been said why somewhere else but...why is the other team invisible during the search opponent? It was sooo much better when you could tell how many are joining live in front of us. And taking the option to all ready up when it take too much time either you're 4vs4, 5vs4....so we could save some time and jump in a game much faster.......sooo many weird decision taken....none for the best.
lx3dEMONxl
New Adventurer
2 years ago
@Tigidooh Agreed. It takes way too long regardless. I went from not being able to find a game at all though, to find a game in 6 minutes or so. So for me it was an improvement to change that setting. 6 minutes is still too long. Hopefully it will help someone else until EA makes some changes to the matchmaking system. As a former game industry professional, I know it takes a while to compile all the bugs/feedback, triage them, make changes to game code, and finally put it through QA and go through several iterations prior to release.
Tigidooh
Rising Ace
2 years ago
@lx3dEMONxl

Yeah but unlike games like Cyberpunk, they don't have the luxury to take their sweet time to find a solution, Cyberpunk will last for as long as peoples will play it and won't get a new release one year later like the NHL franchise. These games can take several months to pull a patch and it's still going to be ''Ok'' but NHL only really last one year for most online/Chel players, we can't wait that long and we all know that every months that get closer to a new release the online community is reducing so it doesnt make thing any easier. They have to patch this ASAP, it's the closest we get of game breaking right now. Add to this all the time your friends get locked in the dressing room while only the host join the lobby.