NHL 25 WISHLIST (YES ALREADY)

I'm not going to pretend like I know how to make video games. I'm sure it isn't too easy and you're never going to please everybody. I'm primarily a franchise mode player so having said that, there a couple of things I just find frustrating:

Franchise mode

LTIR - In NHL 24 the Avs are over the cap by a lot when starting a franchise. Instead of creating a basic LTIR system that opens up cap space, the game reduces every player salary on the team by a percentage that allows the team to be under the cap. Even players with long contracts and high AAV. So Makar's salary goes from $9 million/year to $7 something million/year. 

In actuality, LTIR is complicated, but they could create something basic that allows cap space to open up without adjusting everyone's salaries. If their argument is that they don't want gamers to stack their team for the playoffs, so what? Let us decide that. The NHL allows for it. Regardless, if you want to take a player off of LTIR  in the regular season and it puts you over the cap, the game simply won't allow you to do it. Easy. It would force gamers to make decisions. It would be more challenging.

In that same vein, if we want to extend a player with a year left on his  contract, please don't limit us based on what the current cap is. The cap is going to go up. If I extend someone and I'm over the cap the following year, don't let me play a game until I make moves that put me under the cap.

Those two things are NHL realities. I would think that this should be easy to implement and make playing franchise mode more realistic. 

Presentation 

Goal celebrations - NHL 24 goal celebrations are the opposite of real life NHL celebrations. The NHL is the consummate team sport. Celebrations are always group celebrations...mostly they are at least.

They need to create celebrations that take into account the context of the game. For example, if you're a road team and you score, the arena should be silent and you can actually hear the yells of the road team. If the game is 5-O with 2 min left to play, whoever scores the next goal, the celebrations should be subdued with a few low-fives or something. Celebrations with go-ahead goals in the 3rd period or overtime goals should be more dramatic. That would feel more authentic.

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I know there are issues with the gameplay, but I can live with them. I just want more realism within franchise mode and I would like some variations in goal celebrations based on the context of the game. For me at least, the game would feel much improved if they just implemented those two things.