Would be nice to see a time sensitive game like sports games get a price breakdown near the end of the season. My disk got wrecked and refuse to pay another 100$ for a digital download when the seasons almost done.
Peace out EA games was fun while it lasted and won't be buying any more games from you.
NHL goes on sale for more than half off a month after launch and goes as low as 1/3 quite regularly
Also, (although not confirmed) - NHL 24 will likely hit Game Pass for Xbox in April.
Would've like the NHL to hit the monthly free games for PSN Plus, which has never been on it. Only the other EA sports title have. Would have been good for increasing visibility and population.
NBA 2k was very popular and Soccer is.. well, soccer so it would make sense to put those on PS+ (Golf was added at some point too if I'm not mistaken?); NHL is quite niche all things considered and I doubt EA would want to waste any resources on adding that to even essential tier (though I could see them implementing a free weekend or somethingnif they made a standalone HUT game).
NHL is usually added to the EA Play vault around april/may.
Visibility and population isn't the issue as they already have a decent market waiting - the problem is none of their core base wants to play because they do nothing to fix the series
@TTZ_Dipsy wrote: none of their core base wants to play because they do nothing to fix the series
I wouldn't say they "do nothing" to fix the series.
They introduced free agents into WoC to allow for more 6v6 games when you only have a 3-4 person club.
Regardless of my personal view of the exhaust engine, it was an effort to add something new to the META. Although I don't necessarily like it, I can absolutely appreciate the effort being put into balancing it out. The changes made to the exhaust engine post-launch have all been net positive. I find it's less impactful than it was during launch and now it seems you really need to earn full pressure. That said, the goalies losing their footing so often just because full pressure is activated still irks me. But. They're trying something new.
Although hardcore sim players hate this - making moves like The Michigan more accessible was a great idea. It still takes skill to pull off and is not something you see scored as often as the negative trolls online will tell you. It adds another exciting element to the gameplay.
Icon passing is a great addition that many people are sleeping on. It takes time and patience to get into the habit of using it and memorizing where each Icon usually is, but once you start adding this to your game, it can open things up. I think sometimes the accuracy of an icon-pass is much higher than a regular RT pass, which I believe has been addressed in recent patches. But it's another example of something added to the game to keep things fresh.
I also don't think EA gets enough credit for adding cross-play. That's a tough technological hurdle to clear for any development team, regardless of how pervasive it was throughout most AAA titles already.
Thank you so much for the information.
@KidShowtime1867 People were/are having even more troubles matchmaking since the addition of drop ins. Not only that but I see constant complaints of these guys ruining it for clubs, both intentional and not with new teamplay rating changes.
I appreciate the attempt of the exhaust engine but this was a half-assed at best. Why in the unholy heck would you make this so one-sided for attackers? Moronic.
In a game so fast paced as NHL I agree simplifying the controls for things like Michigan and hipchecks but 1. they definitely didn't need to take time/resources to add the Michigan in the first place, 2. It was wayyyy too complicated and terribly mapped to accomplish with how the game works, and 3. While I'm one of the ones who asked for a simplified hipcheck control, I expected them to at least balance it (it should have started as ehat we have now and them get further tweaks).
They made goalies even worse than 23 lol; that is baffling.
The game is way too fast for icon passing in the moment. Sure, its a good accessability feature but thats it - this is something that should be second nature to devs, not something that needed to be a main selling point/feature lol. I personally see 0 advantage to this over twitch R2's at a moments notice.
Crossplay isn't new and we're already more than halfway through current gens lifecycle. Cross GEN is a pipedream and we're using tech from before NHL 14 haha.
I'm personally done with giving EA participation ribbons - I would love to see actual, meaningful results
Last gen should have been given it's sweet release years ago; I honestly think they're waiting for PS6 and Xbox [insert stupid naming convention]
