Re: Revert The Goalie Update

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@NeonSkyline21 wrote:

@EA_Aljo No disrespect at all but this is a baffling response to the videos @SummerOfDekes presented to you. I don't think anyone said skaters with stats in the mid-80s SHOULDN'T be allowed to score. He was talking about unscreened, soft wristers from the point giving goalies way more trouble than they should OR straight up hitting the back of the net. 

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What they said was -

"Any pro goalie who let in those kinds of shots would quickly be unemployed."

I took this to mean they should always stop those shots. Again, the high majority of these will be stopped.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@NeonSkyline21 wrote:

@EA_AljoNo disrespect at all but this is a baffling response to the videos @SummerOfDekes presented to you. I don't think anyone said skaters with stats in the mid-80s SHOULDN'T be allowed to score. He was talking about unscreened, soft wristers from the point giving goalies way more trouble than they should OR straight up hitting the back of the net. 

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What they said was -

"Any pro goalie who let in those kinds of shots would quickly be unemployed."

I took this to mean they should always stop those shots. Again, the high majority of these will be stopped.

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Your opinion is fair enough, but I'd like to note that the issue isn't just the pucks going in the net, it's how the goalies handle and react to such simple shots. Go back and watch that second clip I posted. Why would any goalie be flopping around to the point of nearly knocking the puck into his own net on such an easy, weak, low danger shot? I understand his energy was low, so it's believable that he didn't handle the puck cleanly, but why can't the ai just cover the puck? Why do the goalies constantly spaz out over the simplest things?

Whether it be human or ai goalies, the simple fact of the matter is that goalies in this game wayyy overreact to simple shots all the time. I suspect this is probably due to the fatigue system or whatever that was introduced this year, and if so then it needs to be adjusted. There is absolutely zero reason for the goalies to end up flopping around on the ice over an easy unscreened wrister from that far out. In real hockey, goalies end up flopping around because they get caught off guard by plays in tight, or because a puck took a weird deflection they weren't expecting, not because a guy mailed a puck from the parking lot.

I understand that there's a lot to work on when it comes to goalies, human and ai alike, so I don't expect it to be sorted out in NHL 24. Frankly, I think a lot of the issues are from the lack of contextual save animations/logic, so that would, at best, be something worked on for NHL 25. I just hope, as a fan of both the franchise and the goalie position, that EA will deliver needed changes to goalies next year.

Edit: and just as a bit of food for thought, the build I used in those clips had zero shooting abilities. No close quarters, make it snappy, heatseaker. Nothing.

@SummerOfDekes 

I absolutely agree with what you're saying and couldn't have higher hopes for goalies to be improved. I've also forwarded the high amount of goalie feedback we've had on these forums. While I'm doubtful anything will change for 24, I'm optimistic there will be goalie improvements for future games. I know you're all sick of hearing it, but we'll just have to wait for news on this.

@SummerOfDekesGoalies is by far the hardest thing to get right if ever. If the same shots were to never go in then goalies would be godlike. The problem is the simple routine ones also get mixed into that RNG and cause these problems. My personal fav goal against is the one where they shoot it from along the boards and the goalie simply doesn't react at all to the puck on the ice.  And I blame a bunch of the goals on set animations.  If we could get separate limb movement it could be awesome, but also very hard to program I would imagine and make look realistic.  I'm not a fan of the goalies getting "tired"  and I really hate the fall on their rears animation when it's simply not needed at all.

I do think goalies have gotten so much better in robbing people side to side and stopping breakaways more often when reading the side they are going to properly.  At least human wise they have.    

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote:

@SummerOfDekesGoalies is by far the hardest thing to get right if ever. If the same shots were to never go in then goalies would be godlike. The problem is the simple routine ones also get mixed into that RNG and cause these problems. My personal fav goal against is the one where they shoot it from along the boards and the goalie simply doesn't react at all to the puck on the ice.  And I blame a bunch of the goals on set animations.  If we could get separate limb movement it could be awesome, but also very hard to program I would imagine and make look realistic.  I'm not a fan of the goalies getting "tired"  and I really hate the fall on their rears animation when it's simply not needed at all.

I do think goalies have gotten so much better in robbing people side to side and stopping breakaways more often when reading the side they are going to properly.  At least human wise they have.    

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Again, it's not so much pucks just finding their way into the net, it's how the goalies handle these easy shots - the overreaction to low danger shots. If a guy absolutely nails the corner of the post on a shot from distance, or a puck takes a deflection, etc., fine. But, why the overreaction, sprawling, flopping-around animations from such weak shots? Again, watch the second clip. Whether it's humans or ai goalies, the goalies are always overreacting to routine plays.

I've posted this clip before, but it illustrates one of the main problems with goalies.

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/TBKHCSCuNm

Simple, low danger shot from the boards. No screen, goalie's in good position. Puck hits the goalie in the chest, drops down between his pads. Instead of just covering the puck with his glove or squeezing his pads together, my goalie freaks out and ends up kicking the puck into the net.

It'd be one thing if pucks just randomly found their way into the net, but the goalie ai in this game has such poor situational awareness that simple plays cause the goalies to spaz out and start doing Booker T spinaroonis in the crease for no reason. 

And just to really illustrate my point, here's a screenshot of a save I DID make.

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/ZupnjzAegN

Goalies are so backwards in this game. They make dumb saves they have no chance on, but easy plays end up in the net.

@KlariskraysNHL Set animations definitely play a big role. I also suspect that there's a fixed number of shot locations as well. Every year there seems to be a different set of shot + save animation pairs that happen way too often.

Back in NHL 22 this save was a common occurrence. Cross-ice pass and the goalie would make a desperation save with the shaft of his stick. Something that would be a once-a-season highlight reel save in the NHL was happening every two or three games in NHL 22:

In NHL 24 what I'm noticing a lot lately is the number of goals where the goalie gets just a piece of the puck with the edge of his blocker.  It's something that's not out  of the ordinary as a one-off, but when it happens multiple times a game, every game it starts to stand out as artificial.  I don't have a clip, but I'm sure I could get a few next time I play.

@SummerOfDekesPlayoffError explained what I was trying to get at.

Also that goal you showed in your 1st video used to happen in the PS360 era too.    And yes I agree a good deal of times they make the "WOW" moment saves that sometimes are just too unbelievable.

Good discussion thus far, goalies need a lot of work.  To offer some opinions on what is being said...

-there does need to be some element of randomness.  Hockey is a fluid and chaotic game, and even in an online competitive environment it should reflect this so that it feels like hockey. But the occurence of long distance bad goals is misproportioned.  Should be something we see very infrequently instead of every couple games.

-regarding goalies flopping, one thing we have noticed in EASHL is that if our defenseman makes a block, even if its just a simple knock down and gain of puck possession, our goalie will freak out like he's Dominic Hasek defending a 3 on 0.  Goalies seem to treat anything slightly "off script" by over reacting terribly.  Goalies should NOT be flopping if our defense knocks down a shot.  For some reason its triggering desperation mode ahen not warranted.

To be fair, even on FIFA the goalkeepers are bad. It's tough for sports games to nail. Make them too OP and everyone skillzones, make them like NHL 23 which was non existent and the goal count goes up to 15 lol.

My biggest issue is height being too much of a factor. 67 Boyko will outperform a 95 Hasek. Makes literally no sense. 

I don't have the experience playing as a goaltender, but they are too much at the mercy of X-Factors, screening is too wide (and they don't look around them properly), the covering animations are horrendous (and poorly timed), the poke checks (computer goaltender) are predictable and can be taken advantage of, they give up terrible rebounds too often (professional goaltenders at least attempt to deflect pucks to the corner), scrambles are too frequent and the goaltender tires too easily, own goals or the goaltender knocking the puck into his own net are way too frequent as well.  

That's one big messy paragraph of some of the things that need to be looked at off the top of my head. 

https://www.xbox.com/play/media/NKHqMmFWpE

This is what needs to be eliminated from the game. Relatively simple wrist shot that nails the goalie in the logo. Instead of being able to calmly gather the puck, the goalie plays hacky sack with the puck like he's Freddie Prinze Jr in 'She's All That' before knocking the puck into his own net.

@FourZeroVI 

I mentioned it being a high majority. Which is a lot more than 51%. There are some comments here that sound like they're rarely stopping these shots and that's just not true. However, I'm in agreement that they need to be improved.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@FourZeroVI 

I mentioned it being a high majority. Which is a lot more than 51%. There are some comments here that sound like they're rarely stopping these shots and that's just not true. However, I'm in agreement that they need to be improved.

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It's obviously not every single shot that goes in, but I think that's missing the larger point I was making. Ultimately, there's just too many bad goals going in from low danger areas. And I understand, odd goals happen in real life, too. The problem, imo, isn't necessarily that weird bounces happen, it's how often they happen. For those of us who main goalie, we just go into games hoping our offense can score four, cause we know there's probably gonna be at least three goals scored against us off terrible bounces.

I think my perspective on this topic is basically this. It feels like goalies and defense are playing a sim while the forwards are playing an arcade. It's frustrating when we're having to play a fantastic game just to have a save percentage in the 80s - a terrible save percentage in real life - while the forwards are picking up hat tricks because they can just stand in front of the net and let the game auto-tip pucks for them, or press a single button to perform a Michigan. The balance of this game is just totally off.

@SummerOfDekes 

Yep. As I mentioned previously, I'm in agreement with all of this.