Nerf the cross crease

Yeah, this game there is no way to really defend just gotta mess them up and hope for the best. The defense is extremely handicapped. you can't play this game like real hockey imo gotta play it like EA hockey. A lot of times I pretend I'm gonna take the guy without the puck then switch last second and hope they're not quick enough to pass.. goalies make good 1T defense if you don't try to defend it but tbh there's sometimes no correct move or positioning.. sometimes they're gonna score no matter how well you play. If they pass right at the goalies crease it's for sure a goal. Your defender won't make any attempt to pick it (in fact you have a better chance of having the puck glance off your stick/ skate and go into the net for a goal than you do to pick it if you're near the crease) and the goalie won't make any attempt to stick it and doesn't have the time to make it across the crease. If they get into that position it's an almost for sure goal. Of course IF they go 1 on 1 with the goalie it's an almost for sure goal too. Everyone has a couple ways to score on a goalie from at least 3 diff angles. This dev team is in pretty far over their heads imo. No love has been given to the defense in 4 years? They've just given more and more tools for the offense. Now it's so bad playing defense that they had to nerf clearing the puck because they knew players were going to try to do that 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 

If you have nerfed defense SO MUCH and given the offense so many tools that you knew players would try to clear the puck in even strength just to survive and wanted to FURTHER punish them.. wouldn't you think that's a problem? They knew players were gonna be struggling so much that they would CHOOSE to give the puck back just to get out of their zone and they don't see a problem... if they don't see the problem in that then to me they're the problem here lmao. Defense in this game is the most unrewarding grind fest. Every time I try to play good defense and feel I did everything right. I walk away having more questions than answers. Stick checking, stick lifting, body checking, intercepting.. NOTHING feels consistent, nothing feels like it's in a good place, nothing looks/ feels genuine to the game, to break up passes you gotta have your stick in PERFECT position, even then we have videos of the puck just going through people's stick blades. Meanwhile go behind and press triangle and you might get a goal 🤡 it may be easy to defend the lacrosse but I can still get multiple in a game esp against teams doing everything they can to stop the 1T

Can put 40+ shots on net to their 13, triple time on attack, way better passing, more take aways, less turnovers, you play the pass or the man.. their goalie makes athletic save after athletic save against 1t's while 2 on 0... they come into your zone, pass it across the crease.. puck hits your skate and goes into the net.... this is NHL 24, a game that attempts to look like hockey. I for sure have a winning record but I've also lost to teams who have 0 idea what they're doing, and beat teams that I felt outplayed me and we just got a couple lucky bounces.. they just went backwards with this game. I think the hitting (outside of hipchecks) is "better" personally I'd still turn down the effectiveness of big hits and make the shoves/ shoulder checks do a bit more but I digress. If we could just turn down hip checks and increase almost EVERYTHING else.