Re: Be a pro AI

Boring is a great word. Not only are we lacking real hockey strategies in this game in general. but the AI are now extremely passive defensively so it leads to a lot of plays like you highlighted where the AI just deke into themselves and the game looks like timbit hockey with unnecessary dekes, a complete lack of spatial awareness, and goals more often than not coming from seemingly benign scenarios where enough bad things happen in a row that it leads to an extremely ugly looking goal.

Been saying it for years now, this game quite literally can't take take any meaningful steps forward both in offline and 1v1 play until the AI is addressed. Even with "perfect" sliders (if that were a remote possibility from a general consensus standpoint) the game would still be underwhelming offline and would for the most part be the same online with maybe some lower success rates while playing the game the same way as now. 

Even the most casual of hockey fans who might be drawn to this game after watching playoff hockey would turn this game on and wonder what in the world they're playing, because the AI are so far away from doing anything even remotely realistic in any consistent manner that it's quite literally like watching a different sport. Combine that with the default sliders they just booted the game with and they'll really be shaking their heads wondering if their eyes are deceiving them because guys are covering 15x the amount of ice in half the time as the real life game they watched and made 30x less amount of passes to achieve time and space because its practically given for free.

Now, all of the obvious fact that no sports game is perfect. I'm not silly enough to ask for that. But at least with Madden and FIFA there's a general idea of the sport being played by the AI. It's not great, but you can at least find a decent amount of plays and decisions that look "passable" if you will, even things as simple as general game speed. With NHL, it looks and feels like a video game with a hockey skin. Very routine plays like center drives on a rush are just non-existent and extremely simple coverage concepts like "don't stand on the weakside of your mark who is quite literally standing stationary in the slot" are fumbled by the AI that you can't really be drawn into this game from a hockey POV in the slightest. 

FIFA has it's coverage breakdowns, don't get me wrong. But usually its with overlapping cuts, or on a blocked shot and there's a lot of moving parts, NHL just has weakside defenders standing on the outside of their mark looking at the weakside corner where there's quite literally nobody there. No passes, no shots, no blocks, quite literally nothing happening that would even remotely begin to justify a blown coverage in the slot and that just happens quite frequently. Things like that really drive away the casual audience imo because they can't relate to what they just watched IRL. I believe my hockey knowledge is quite high compared to a casual consumer so I know I'll notice things that they wouldn't, but those aren't the mistakes we're talking about here. These aren't "zone issues" or infrequent "2nd level blocking assignment issues," these are frequent misplays and the most routine of assignments and plays. I don't see FIFA defenders losing their mark in the box that often on extremely routine plays and especially not in the way NHL guys do by facing the complete wrong way of the play. I don't see Madden defenders in M2M standing outside of their mark looking towards the sideline. They're not perfect games but as a casual consumer I am certainly not seeing the level of AI blunders currently present in this series. The foundational elements of those two sports are seemingly there. NHL is not. Playing this game like you would IRL will not lead to much success if any. You don't have to play like the real sport in the slightest and in the competitive scene you probably shouldn't play like the sport in the slightest because you won't have much luck.

Need to have passable AI soon. It will help quite literally every single game mode in the game and will be much better at retaining new hockey fans as it will play much more like the experience they've just been recently exposed to.

You'd think having dynamic AI that evolves with every iteration of the game and becomes more and more lifelike would be a priority for a company making a game that contains offline modes and 1v1 modes but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's a damn shame because the AI is consistently what ruins my fun when playing this game. 

---

@NeonSkyline21 wrote:

You'd think having dynamic AI that evolves with every iteration of the game and becomes more and more lifelike would be a priority for a company making a game that contains offline modes and 1v1 modes but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's a damn shame because the AI is consistently what ruins my fun when playing this game. 

---

Yeah, the AI advancements have been slow (and in some cases have regressed) which is definitely frustrating for those of us who watch playoff hockey, get the NHL itch, then have to watch the AI chase spots on the ice over the puck/their marks in the only hockey game on the market. 

The overly passive in-zone defense paired with the incredibly static in-zone offense seen in NHL 21 and beyond basically makes the game a rather mundane game of keep away for any offline user. I have almost zero problems wasting half a period at least per possession as the entire possession is nearly uncontested. And after I ping pong the puck around the outside to my stationary AI teammates for awhile who are completely uninterested in scoring based on their body position and their desire to stand near the boards or 5 feet off to the side of the net providing neither a screen nor high danger deflection threat, they'll accidentally stumble into a scoring chance that will be easily shutdown without any sort of rebound or effort at all from the robotic goalies seen in 23 and 24. No reward, not even a scramble, not even a slight glimmer of hope that the 13-touch play I just executed finished off by a one-timer in the slot could ever even remotely have the possibility of going in. Just top-corner slapshot 1T easily gloved and held like it was a routine drill.

And while it's bad enough for offline users, it's even worse watching CPU vs CPU play. I don't enjoy doing that in any game, but I've done it in NHL just to understand the AI better in terms of strategies so I can help my own experience, and there's just not a lot to get excited about when watching. I mean, I get that hockey AI has to be an insanely hard thing to design and program, but it's those "base level" plays if you will that are just wrong in general that more than likely contribute to the AI looking/feeling a lot worse than they probably are if they had a better foundation.

I mean, no center drives, no forwards constantly screening, the defense loathing the idea of shooting before 15 passes have been made, defense walking to the middle on their backhands, forwards standing on their backhands, support forwards standing along the wall making cycling impossible, the AI just simply not wanting to headman/ring a puck when pressured in the dzone, just so many simple things that they don't do that could easily elevate the enjoyment of both playing with and watching them that are either absent or inconsistent. 

Again, not saying any of this is easy. Not asking for the NHL series to be a global leader in AI modeling, on the contrary I'd like to see them less "dynamic" and more predictable with lots of "set" movements where there will naturally be more passing options for them to be "dynamic" with rather than their favorite NZ regroup of "defenseman skate board to board to board to board, to 360 pivot to cross-ice pass that's been inexplicably left open by the human's AI winger, to 180 degree escape to skating board to board, then forward, then dump into the corner that has nobody with the speed or momentum to win the puck race" that they run regularly.

The AI in 2k weren't perfect, but their "patterns" or whatever you want to call them were miles easier on the eyes than EA's. It's why NHL 2k10 was my offline hockey game up until NHL 20. 

---

@NeonSkyline21 wrote:
@Limp_KidzKitDude... you play offline games in which you control the entire team? That stuff is the most boring way to play this game IMO and I just can't do it. Sometimes I do it when my internet is out or what have you and it's just... incredibly boring. So predictable. So non-hockey-like.

The only time I play offline now is when I play be a pro but that comes with its own issues that I've discussed on here many times. It basically boils down to watching your AI teammates act like they have no brains and deke into defenders, become static in the offensive zone (like you said), not take advantage of basic hockey tactics, etc etc etc. It's soul-crushing, to be honest. So I stick to Online Versus and combat the top-100 rank exploiters and iso-ball players every day.

There ain't no winning, is there? lol.

---

Yeah, but I play it on NHL 20 where the AI actually attack the puck and I use my own custom sliders and rosters to produce a game experience much closer to real hockey than anything online can do. No matter the amount of humans nor game mode, there is nothing about the flow of an online EA hockey game that comes close to replicating hockey. Rocket League has a much closer "flow" to hockey than EA NHL due to the skill required, the way boost mimics fatigue, and the way your car actually has momentum.

I use aim assist shooting, fully manual passing, a million other slider edits, and play 1/2 the game with each team to ensure "fair" results for my custom league. Is it "literally real" haha, no. But does it scratch the itch more than any online experience I have had? Undoubtedly yes. I'll post some clips.

First clip - just a simple regroup give and go zone entry. Nothing special but moving the puck creates the necessary time and space to attack the zone and put pressure on the dman.

2nd clip is a defensive puck win to a regroup. Then a stretch pass, I split the D thanks to the step/bad animation but I notice I won't beat the weakside D so I move it out wide, then complete the give and go but the goalie makes a great save. I've seen similar plays go in, find a hole, snipe the goalie, but this time a big glove same. Dynamic results from engaging gameplay.

Love this 3rd clip. Starts with a puck battle off of a save. A pinch by me (this is where the AI should be pinching already but I had to manually do it) leads to a high turnover but not a ton of room. I patiently walk the line and find a safe dump to which I touch ring the puck to the far side to buy time and space. That's how real hockey is played out all of the time at the professional and colligate levels. Many times it takes and area pass to an area pass to buy the time and space you need. Love plays like this, don't see this online whatsoever.

Last video is a "high cycle" goal. What's not shown here is a won faceoff to the strong-side D. I walked towards the middle (as all IRL D are taught) and passed it to my D partner to get the weakside wing moving. I then passed it back to the strong side D who was now in the middle of the ice which is where the video picks up. I walk the line, don't see a great shooting lane so I make a little touch area pass to my wing who takes a step or two, toe and release shoots it and snipes the goalie. 

Again, due to auto aim and my customer sliders/rosters, I've seen this shot miss the net, I've seeen it be shrugged off, I've seen it snagged, but this time is went in. Dynamic results from engaging gameplay. I was rewarded for moving the puck and shooting. I don't score this goal even 50% of the time, maybe like 25% or so, but enough to where I shoot it and from a spot that might be borderline "too far out" but it's paired with a toedrag and release which takes extra time to do so the reward should be a bit higher due to the risk.

So yeah, I find it much more boring defending the same 1-3 things all game and watching/scoring the same 1-3 goals for eternity. That's not hockey. It doesn't feel like hockey, doesn't remind me of hockey, doesn't engage or interest me like hockey does, but my offline set can do all of those things. The AI still has it's blunders (like the goal above, the lack of being able to cover simple assignments lead to having way too much time and space off of a simple faceoff play) but at least the room for error in passing is there so its a good challenge for me, the flow is there so soft dumps, area passes, drop passes, screens, and tips are all very present, and the results are dynamic to always keep me coming back. Something I can't say about playing online where everyone essentially plays the same because they have to play the same.

I'm someone who was a routine top 100 vs player back in NHL 07-11, I was a top 100 HUT finisher in NHL 15, I have won competitive 6's championships at the highest level available during the time, so I have reached the extent of what online hockey can offer me. Until the AI returns to NHL 20 levels and until the meta evolves past our pre-approved 2 methods of scoring, there's nothing more I can get from playing "hockey" against a human. NHL 20 offline is a much more immersive experience for me.