NHL TeamI think the thing with people complaining about each release being a glorified roster update is that it's a self-inflicted wound. Nobody's forcing EA/NHL's hand to release a game every year that they can't make fresh and new. Those two corporations do that because it's an avenue to make more money every year. Kinda like how back in the day you'd get a new Saw movie every Halloween. Was the new sequel warranted? No, but it made money, so we got it.
Really, I think sports games should just be live service games. It makes way more sense than a yearly release imo. But, I'm sure there's profit considerations that would need to be made to do that.
I think a lot of frustration comes not from EA not making any changes to the game, because they do. Rather, I think it's that seemingly a lot of time gets allocated towards secondary, trivial, window dressings instead of important, game-changing issues. Like, I can only hope that maybe next game, goalies will be able to cover pucks that are sitting right next to the outside of the post, though I won't hold my breath. However, I sure as hell know that we'll get some idiotic cartoonish animated skates, or some fancy new glow-in-the-dark warewolf costume that nobody will ever use.
Idk, I'm sure the dev team works hard and is trying to make a good game. But, just as a fan, I feel like so many important issues just don't ever get addressed while nonsense that doesn't matter gets priority.
As far as the sim/arcade issue goes, I feel that's very easily resolved. Just make EASHL be a more hardcore, realistic, slower paced sim mode for the competitive 3s/6s communities, and have a second mode that's fast paced action with all the cartoonish abilities and perks, gigantic hits with guys flying through the glass and into the parking lot, etc. I think trying to blend the two is where you run into issues and leaving every unsatisfied.
Sports games are much harder to go as a live service because of the Sport Licenses and the fact they would need to remove players here or there when they expire. So it greatly would affect things like HUT and offline modes. People's saved files would end up getting corrupted because players would be removed from games each year for offline play. And if it did become a live service I would think it would be a subscription model And that could be a slippery slope.
They aren't going to make 2 different EASHL type modes. They aren't about to split the community up even more. I mean look they combined Drop-Ins to essentially be EASHL because of complaints of no one finding games. So they addressed that. Even traits are linear among all the modes.
I'm fully expecting NHL 25 to either give us an online franchise mode or they gonna give some life back to HUT with changes. Of course there will be gameplay changes too but I'm not expecting anything special to World of Chel.
@KlariskraysNHL wrote:Sports games are much harder to go as a live service because of the Sport Licenses and the fact they would need to remove players here or there when they expire. So it greatly would affect things like HUT and offline modes. People's saved files would end up getting corrupted because players would be removed from games each year for offline play. And if it did become a live service I would think it would be a subscription model And that could be a slippery slope.
They aren't going to make 2 different EASHL type modes. They aren't about to split the community up even more. I mean look they combined Drop-Ins to essentially be EASHL because of complaints of no one finding games. So they addressed that. Even traits are linear among all the modes.
I'm fully expecting NHL 25 to either give us an online franchise mode or they gonna give some life back to HUT with changes. Of course there will be gameplay changes too but I'm not expecting anything special to World of Chel.
I'm not talking about two different EASHLs, I'm talking about a mode separate from EASHL. Some of the older games had the kind of mode I'm talking about, but I forget what it was called. It was a 6s online mode, tho. You could have EASHL be the gritty sim mode and have the other mode be the cartoony superhero hockey mode.
Or, they could just leave the game be and continue to lose players. Tbh, I don't necessarily care too much as I myself barely play this game anymore because of how poor it is.
@KlariskraysNHLI think it's possible. You just need to remove the offline component of the game completely. Realistically, I know it has been mentioned that down the road they will look at offline modes, but it doesn't make sense seeing the focus is solely on what they can sell (hence the cards, season pass, operators and fortnite type store for your player) You can build a model around selling a season pass and then have an ultimate pass for stuff like online franchise give you access to a server for you and your friends. You wouldn't need much else from the offline side of it.
Is it good... No... but with how the direction has been to make it more of an online/fast paced experience, goofy over the top celebrations and making it overall more flashy, to catering to the average player. I can't see it really going any other way.
Btw these thoughts are coming from a solely offline player (franchise and once be a pro) going back to NHL 94.
@SummerOfDekes wrote:
@KlariskraysNHL wrote:Sports games are much harder to go as a live service because of the Sport Licenses and the fact they would need to remove players here or there when they expire. So it greatly would affect things like HUT and offline modes. People's saved files would end up getting corrupted because players would be removed from games each year for offline play. And if it did become a live service I would think it would be a subscription model And that could be a slippery slope.
They aren't going to make 2 different EASHL type modes. They aren't about to split the community up even more. I mean look they combined Drop-Ins to essentially be EASHL because of complaints of no one finding games. So they addressed that. Even traits are linear among all the modes.
I'm fully expecting NHL 25 to either give us an online franchise mode or they gonna give some life back to HUT with changes. Of course there will be gameplay changes too but I'm not expecting anything special to World of Chel.
I'm not talking about two different EASHLs, I'm talking about a mode separate from EASHL. Some of the older games had the kind of mode I'm talking about, but I forget what it was called. It was a 6s online mode, tho. You could have EASHL be the gritty sim mode and have the other mode be the cartoony superhero hockey mode.
Or, they could just leave the game be and continue to lose players. Tbh, I don't necessarily care too much as I myself barely play this game anymore because of how poor it is.
You're talking about OTP (online team play), you play 6s with NHL players instead of your created player in club. OTP is also where they gave in and let us try out full collision physics for a week back in the day.
