NHL25 Controls
Hi, I have played NHL since 2006. The skill stick was the best part of the game, and last year in NHL24 they completely ruined it by making puck protect holding left/right on the right stick. And on ...
Forum Discussion
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
Community ManagerThat's not the way it works in the game though. You hold down hustle and move left or right. You're not going forehand/backhand to hold your stick out and protect it. Your player will shield their body better when protecting the puck while skating. Instead of being able to exploit this mechanic to backskate unrealistically.
Many people made the switch to Total Control. Many others stuck with skill stick. Personally, I kept using skill stick and remapped the fake shot to a paddle on the underside of an Elite controller because I was constantly accidentally hitting this when stick handling. So far, you're the first I've heard that specifically didn't get the game only because puck protect changed. We've had more positive feedback on this since it removed the exploit that a very large part of the community did not like.
I have to agree with Flow here. I don't know who you guys got feedback from. But my friends and I are all elite 1s every season and our biggest complaint is the stick handling / puck protection. There was no reason to remove puck protect from the A button. Really disappointed to here that you will not be reverting back to the old controls. As someone who has been playing this game for 20 years now I can honestly say, to completely re map certain controls was one of the worst decisions EA has made. In my opinion this was the new Devs coming in last year and trying to make their impact felt my changing the controls. That is fine if it has a positive impact on the game, very few people that play at a competive level agree with that change. But just like every other video game has done in recent years, everything gets catered to the average player to reduce the skill gap.
A simple fix would have been to have puck protect override the LT or vice versa. Simply cancel one out when someone is trying to use both. No different then how trying to go backhand or forehand used to cancel your hustle.
If you and your friends are Elite 1s, then you all should be able to handle this skill change with ease. The highest level rank in our game should stand out among the rest. If you can’t have the mechanical skill to remove the thumb from the hustle button whenever you want to begin deking and instead want the game to do it automatically for us, than that Elite 1 rank has not been earned IMO. It is a skill that forces players to be more active on the thumbsticks which raises the skill gap in the game further. If it can’t be done, than some time needs to be spent getting the muscle memory down in practice mode, not requesting the devs to make the controls easier.
The puck protect overtakes the stick handling even when you're not on the hustle at times. It's a game at the same time. People want to be able to stick handle freely. It's more annoying foe the top skilled players. They are still going to heat 99% of teams if you know how to pass and play def. Just rather have it the old way. More fun.
- EA_Aljo
Puck protect only engages when hustling. If you're seeing it happen when not hustling, that would be a bug. I haven't been able to reproduce it. Can you get me a video showing this so I can get it reported to the team?
You can stick handle freely when not protecting the puck. This makes sense since you're busy not only protecting the puck, but hustling.
