NHL 24 User Experience Survey - Commentary.

I would like to highlight my experience with one positive and one negative:

positive: 

the goalies are extremely improved making it harder to score with the cheap glitchy ai exploits. This has dramatically improved gameplay by essentially forcing players to adapt to a play strategy that is more on ice focused on making plays and mimicking real life hockey. Further to this is the 30 second zone pressure feature. Personally I think these two improvements drastically improve the gameplay and allow skill separation of the player base. 

Negative:

Its the chicken or the egg effect.. what ruined what. Now that the game has evolved as above it is being compromised by poor tuning adjustments decisions/sliders which negate the overall control of the above. I am still coming across too many tuning adjustment games which override my players skills. This is especially noticeable playing CPU games. It is also still a problem online where a player can cheat by using a lower overall team and getting ai slider advantages. This defeats the purpose of the pressure system in its entirety rendering the game as still primitive. 

Props to you for putting all this together and relaying what really needs to be said from long-time players. The fact that simple attentions to detail like you said in not being able to change goalie pads to match jerseys is irksome especially when the player card shows a completely different set of pads than what you get. (i.e. 24 Hasek card face having the red/black buffalo gear, but on ice he's in white/blue pads)

Here's my comments from the UE survey with the major things I have issues with:

Both sides of puck play in HUT feels really clunky and I'm really hard pressed to continue playing this year. Hitting, stick checking / stick handling, basic physics, etc. feel laughably unrealistic. Any type of defense usage comes with too many penalty calls (Thanks for bringing back the cross-checking & elbowing that we can't control by the way). Also getting lots of interference calls when attempting to pass to players in the slot and trying to take one-timers, but my guys keep trying to shove instead of shoot on offense. Deking inputs feel delayed or go unregistered too often, attempted toe drags lead to players pulling back for slap shots literally 50% of the time, run into my cpu players from their lack of awareness at the blue line too often. Lots of trickle-in goals when well-orchestrated plays get shut down with outrageous circus style saves way too often. Can't remember a year where I've doubled & tripled hut opponent's shots as frequently as I do and not come away with deserved wins.

Mix all this with the HUT moments challenges not recording correctly, aggravating extra slow-mo highlights that haven't changed for years, and same regurgitated menu year after year, this has become an overall unenjoyable experience that doesn't have enough improvements to justify it being full priced annually.

Game needs a completely new / overhauled engine in my opinion, considering the one the game currently runs on is from multiple years back in the previous console generation.

HUT is all I play. I used to love Be A Pro until it was ruined. I did my survey at work and rushed my comments. I don't regret buying NHL24 but it hasn't been enjoyable. 

Total control is very disappointing. Push button skill moves are more NHL94 than NHL24 for me and fails to live up to the modern consoles and controllers. Making everyone a superhero means no one is. The change to skill stick hitting is great and requires a bit of skill like a slap shot but is ruined by the push button on total control. 

Moments is so close but is still the 3-star challenges of old. On the plus side, objectives are tied to specific reward but you can't get out of the game unless all 3 stars are completed. This creates a slog that's not needed. 

RUSH.....yeah....let's not. The objectives should be enough to clear the reward path until the points for goals are resolved. 

Objectives and Milestones are awesome but something like 'Win faceoffs with X-factor' when we can't choose a center in X-factor sets fails the idea. Simply winning faceoffs should be enough of a path. Same with the upper/lower corner goals. No need to tie it to specific player items like X-factors and Power-up Icons. 

Online Rivals & Champs are good but the changes to rewards without some advanced announcement from EA is a poor practice. 

Squad Battles is still my favorite mode but that change to rewards fails it. 

The Exhaust Engine....what can be said. Its not good. Defensive plays should be rewarded when it's activated. A poke, hit/bump, interception, and the like should boost your team's energy. Once you've carried/passed the puck out of the zone it should be negated and your team should get some energy back. Creating a turnover at the defensive blueline and picking up the puck should allow some kind of opportunity. Even if you make it to the offensive zone, the exhaust system remains active and hinders any counterattack. I accept it can't be instant but the momentum should swing to the player/team that makes a play against the Pressure System. Same for that last ditch effort big save. That should also boost your team in the D-zone and counter the exhaustion in some form.

Something I didn't see on the survey that I'd like to see addressed is building players. Every Event item should have a non-random set to build it, not just MSPs. Along those same lines, upgradable players should be able to use the previous rated card for upgrades. Mitch Marner has both a 86 X-factor and 86 MSP now. Once the X-factor goes to 87 we should be able to use that MSP to upgrade it and so on. 

Thanks!