NHL Team
@KidShowtime1867 wrote:
@PlayoffError wrote:
@KidShowtime1867The community not initially understanding something isn't a reason not to do it. It just means that there needs to be more of an effort to educate players on why things happen they way they do. Doing this in a clear and constructive fashion goes a long way.You're not wrong, but in the face of taking a sweaty HUT or EASHL club loss on a play that was affected by EA having to take liberties with physics, the player(s) will always default to blaming the game and insisting it's broken and needs to be fixed.
EA can explain why things happen until they're blue in the face, but if enough people on social media drum up enough hatred and performative outrage over a design decision that adversely affects their current playstyle or, god forbid, requires additional learning of a new mechanic, it gets patched and reversed.
In today's climate of instant "outrage" and the virality of the hivemind - EA can't make huge changes to the game without fear of affecting the baseline of yearly sales. They're at the mercy of the loudest most entitled population of gamers that's ever existed. (And I don't mean NHL specifically, I'm talking the general population of today's gamers)
That said, even on these forums - you have to handle everyone with little kid gloves or else they cry about being "bullied". They can bully developers about how much their game "sucks" and how much it's "broken" and how they're "never going to buy it ever again" and how they "have never seen hockey played in their life" but the second someone claps back and says "hey maybe you could learn this mechanic a little better" it's all "oh stop abusing me".
My point being, the average user doesn't care about under-the-hood design choices meant to keep the game balanced, with the side-effect of having unrealistic sequences play out. All they see and react to is what plays out. Being on the bad side of an outcome, 9/10 users will insist they are playing 'perfectly' and the "game decided" to give the bounce to their opponent. Then they come here, or twitter, or Reddit to find like-minded folks to generate some 'outrage' in an attempt to get their perceived issue 'fixed'. Anyone who disagrees is a shill, is downvoted, blocked and/or reported to moderators for being 'combative'.
What's your solution then? Never make any significant changes to the current game? That will just enrage the people who are convinced that EA just releases the same game with a roster update each year. People who want to be outraged about the game are going to find a reason to do so regardless of what you, I or EA does. They're never going to be satisfied, so it doesn't make sense to allow them to dictate how the game is developed.
EA, and us here on these forums should be making more of an effort to reach the people who can be reached. If someone makes a post complaining that some aspect of the game is 'broken' there needs to be more of an effort to understand what the root of their issue is. Far too often people are jumped on for using the wrong word to describe their problem and the discussion is off the rails before it even begins. If people are given a chance to further explain what they think is wrong then a discussion can be had about why what their seeing is or isn't intended behaviour and from there further discussion about what they might want to see in the future can occur.
Community Manager
@PlayoffError wrote:EA, and us here on these forums should be making more of an effort to reach the people who can be reached. If someone makes a post complaining that some aspect of the game is 'broken' there needs to be more of an effort to understand what the root of their issue is. Far too often people are jumped on for using the wrong word to describe their problem and the discussion is off the rails before it even begins. If people are given a chance to further explain what they think is wrong then a discussion can be had about why what their seeing is or isn't intended behaviour and from there further discussion about what they might want to see in the future can occur.
I very frequently ask for feedback so it can be relayed to the team. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If someone is claiming the game is broken, or if it's just a rant saying the game is bad with no actual details, chances are good they're not being constructive so that's largely going to be ignored. Those that do provide actual constructive, mature feedback get it taken more seriously and it gets passed on. There have been a lot of good discussions with usable feedback. We've acted on a lot of this, as you can see in the patch notes.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of the criticism here is often times overly simplistic or just insulting the game devs. I mean, when someone posts, "nhl bad make it different u suck", what exactly are Aljo and the game devs supposed to do with that?
I post a lot of my criticism on here, but I generally try to be as detailed as I can with what the issue is and why I think it's occurring. We need more detailed criticism with screenshots and game clips and less "this game bad 0/10" type posts.
