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RicochetII's avatar
RicochetII
2 years ago

Lack of Direction - What is the EA NHL series?

This is not intended to be a rant or complaint thread, though there may be some examples which feel that way.   The direction and design simply isn't being made clear to the consumer base.  What is...
RicochetII's avatar
RicochetII
2 years ago
@Jagavekov

I'm trying to encourage a reevaluation of priorities in the design and development and some sort of consistency in the decisions being made, but you aren't wrong. I would have a similar and much lengthier list if I was pointing out each item individually.

A 3v3 hockey game where everyone is a forward with equal stats to start, you can choose powerups (X-Factors), and have equipment which provides persistent boosts (a werewolf mask gives you more hitting strength), might be a fun, hockey-adjacent game.

They kind of tried it with NHL 3 on 3 Arcade in 2009(?). I don't know what the numbers were for it, but since it was a one-off I'm guessing not good.
Which would make me question why they are heading in that direction with the main game, but perhaps nobody connected the dots.

Personally, I would want to keep it as close to hockey as possible because I also don't believe the game has a large cross-over demographic (though I don't have the numbers to support that belief).
I don't follow baseball so I'm not about to go out and buy a baseball game, no matter how much "fun" they make it.

You have an audience that is drawn by an interest to what they see on TV and follow in real life. The trick is turning that interest into consumers.

So how do you take a casual hockey fan that bought the game on sale a year after release and convince them to buy the next one?

A) Give them casual clothes and an outdoor rink for their first ever multiplayer experience, which is full of confusing setup, bugs, and unrealistic play.
OR
B) Put them into a game as a member of their favorite team with all the atmosphere of a real life presentation after a very simple and intuitive character creation process.

Group B is more likely to stick around long enough to learn more about the game. Group A is likely to go "What the H is this?" and bail because it is so far from expectations.

I hope conversations around the game's direction can continue and inspire positive changes.
Sega82mega's avatar
Sega82mega
2 years ago
I don’t know if It's that easy that EA just can choose how realistic they want the game to be.

If you look at the graphics, that's one thing that takes the game closer to the real hockey, by it looks.

But to get the right feeling must be much harder.

I think EA will continue to do their best to give us the most out of two worlds. Video gaming and hockey.

The better the technology gets the easier it gets to both have a fun game and a game that look and feel like hockey.

But to get everyone that play the game to play realistic hockey, is that possible?

EA can absolutly give us the right tools but I also think the people that play the game need to give something too..
  • RicochetII's avatar
    RicochetII
    2 years ago
    @Sega82mega

    The looks are the easiest thing to get right. It's a choice that involves more effort not to.

    As I said before, the technology may have limitations, but the basic, most rudimentary elements have existed for decades. Get the most essential thing right, then add the next thing, then the next. (Without breaking what worked previously.)
    With 30(ish) iterations, there should be a steady progression towards "something", but there's a disappointing lack of progression and even some regression, because that "something" has been lost sight of.

    The "NHL" on the cover should make the goal clear, in my opinion. You are selling an NHL game, so make an NHL game. That attracts people with an interest in the NHL.
    Once you get their attention, you have to keep it and perhaps more importantly, avoid losing it.
    Outdoor rinks? You're going to lose more attention than you gain. Steadily adding similar elements is going to result in losing attention from those looking for NHL hockey while alienating existing users.

    As far as getting everyone to play a more, I'll say reasonable rather than realistic, game of hockey, I'm not suggesting that is easy.
    It would require emphasis on "actual hockey play" being rewarded and educating players on what actual hockey play is.
    Not everyone is going to be a good player, but most of them can at least get to the point of being a serviceable teammate.

    The community can absolutely help in leading by example, but you can't give good examples when the game makes them look like bad ones. Good hockey play isn't rewarded. Cheesy meta play is.
    • misterflugietime's avatar
      misterflugietime
      New Vanguard
      2 years ago

      To put it simply - the EA NHL series is a complete and utter mess just as the Madden series is. EA needs to completely scrap the engine they are using and build from the ground up for their NFL and NHL series in order to get back on track. They made a lot of changes for this years game but the vast majority of the changes were a swing and a miss and broke the game in many other ways. 

    • Sega82mega's avatar
      Sega82mega
      2 years ago

      @RicochetII

      But to prevent cheesy meta play to be the 'shizzle' would have to mean that EA need to create a bulletproof game without any backdoors to exploit.

      I just don’t see that happen.

      Might be in line of asking for peace in the whole world.

      Just imagine how hard we push boundaries to find loopholes to exploit. People are making a brand on youtube by doing tutorials on how to 'score the easiest way'.

      It becomes a cat and mouse game, where EA try their best to patch together all the 'cheese' the online community find by testing this product over "million" of hours online in a competitive invironment.

      It wears it down pretty hard, everything has a limit of what it can take.

      Fair play will never be equal to cheese.

      I hope im wrong though, that we can get a straight up cool realistic hockey game without a lot of nonsense.

      That would definitely get me back in the game. 

      But untill then, It's better to lay low and(try to)retain sanity. 😏

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