NHL 24 Online Play Feedback
I've been playing since NHL 93 and this is by far and away the worst online experience in the history of this franchise.
Why? A boatload of things. Here's my list:
-goalies are absolutely broken both manual and AI. Ai goalies are absolutely random and it doesn't matter if you have a good scoring chance, the game decides when you want to score. We are not going to see the days of people having ridiculous records because the game is absolutely random. Perfect shot from the slot? 1/8 times it's a goal. Perfect tic-tac-toe one timer? Who knows. There's virtually no rhyme or reason to the goaltending being good or bad. The same thing applies with forcing passes through the slot with players covered. 25% of the time you just luck out and the defender lets it go through despite perfect positioning. We obviously know why goaltending is broken for human controls. Whomever was in charge of creating the tether system and those that approved it really really really need to consider how they operate.
-the balance of the game is wayyyyyyyyyy off. Want to play defense? Good luck, you need that by committee in this game. Try defending 1 on 1 with a fast skater who has hands. You literally have to resist poke checking unless you have a guarantee because the poke checking animation is sooooooo slow despite having 90+ poke checking. Also if you poke at an open puck, sometimes it doesn't even aim towards the puck. Like come on, man... Not to mention the speed and agility is absolutely INSANE in this game. You don't even need to use forehand bachand up ice because you can literally spam speed burst at 45 degree angles and then the moment you see the defender moving laterally just cut back with your insane agility and go speed burst again and all of a sudden you're either in line or past the defender. Literally the only tool we have that's decent on defense is... the insanely broken hipcheck. Because let's face it, the hitting sometimes connects and other times it literally creates absolutely zero animation.
-the lag is the worst it's ever been. Not sure if it's because I play on the PS5 but I can't even release a pass on time this year. I could have 20 ping and it plays like I have 100 ping from last year. I had zero lag in the technical test or in previous NHL games (aside from your standard west coast server nonsense).
-the R2 button just sometimes doesn't work. This may be just me as I don't see others with this issue, but sometimes I try to one-touch and it doesn't activate at all. Other times it does. It's random.
-the controls! Who and why did we change them? And now I'm FORCED to play on them because I need to use the hip check on defense? And can we stop mapping buttons to R3?! It's annoying trying to make a deke and sometimes because I put too much pressure on my stick that I'm doing a reverse hit. I see it happen lots in games I play that people are just randomly reverse hitting.
-the interference penalties. We all know about this issue. Trying to put an open puck into the net and accidentally hitting a defender because of these broken schemes.
-the dump-in's and out's are horrendous. Who actually approved of it not making out halfway a single zone? How did this make it into the final product????? How?!
-the pressure gauge makes OP skating even more OP. Full pressure initiates ballerina mode and there isn't anything you can do about it. You're too slow to hit, too slow to poke, too slow to skate with them.
-the wait times! How can I create a team of 6 players in less than 30 seconds but it takes 3-7 minutes to find a game? How come I try to drop in with club but out of the 15 games I've played at peak times that not one game was a club game? Between drop-in and club there's nobody searching for games?! Really?!
This game is going downhill so fast. I actually thought I could tune the game offline this year because they tweaked things to be better, however they didn't even tweak them enough. There's still 20% of sliders that are virtually broken so you can't even emulate simulation hockey offline, which is why I bought it but what a huge disappointment that was. AI only going for hits on backs of players, taking horrible angles. Goalies still with insane reaction times to shots that even if you tune goalie save reaction to literally zero they still make wild saves, etc.
Edit: Modified the subject to better reflect the content of the post. -CM
