REAL Total Control (Not Arcade)

So after posing all of those questions, your rebuttal is "you can willingly play at a disadvantage so this is a non-issue" and "defense should have extremely ridiculous amounts of micromanagement and skill-required features but offense should be able to be mastered by ages 3 and up." huh? Do you not see players "losing their minds" on here every single day about inconsisent pokes, tieups, checks, puck pickups?

Is Rocket League not a twitch skill game? Are we actually pretneding that Rocket League isn't a twitch skill game? LoL? CS:GO? All those twitch skill games requies 100,000x the skill of this game yet "twitch skill" is the barrier for NHL to have the most limited amount of offensive accountability? 

Have you tried manual passing? It takes maybe 2 games to be competent and 15 games to master for anyone who would claim to be even semi-experienced with this series.

@Limp_KidzKitThere are no special buttons to press to pass. There is no charging mechanic. Rocket League is a very much twitch game because everything about it requires twitch like movement.

I'm all for 0% passing assistance for a week trial just to read all the rage from people. In a game where connections are iffy at best it would go over not so well. All the real life sports games are about making the average user at times being able to do what the elite pros can do. Now what the truly skilled gamers do is elevate what the game gives to them and do things that are out of this world at times.

I mean I got to champs in Rocket League and even then I wasn't even considered really good compared to the ability some others have. But here is the problem I have with most of the complaints I always see. You always feel bad for yourselves, but you can easily do everything your opponent can do. Why aren't you taking full advantage of what is given to you? Handicapping yourself isn't the answer.

Fun fact... Back in the day when they did playtests in Vancouver someone complained about the CPU being too hard on the lowest difficulty.  It was later on they added rookie.  Just remember this game isn't modeled after the hardcore gamer.  It might just have some sprinkling of hardcore in it.

@Limp_KidzKit 

How are you personally at a disadvantage when you say this -

"Fully manual passing is easier than its ever been. My 60 year old dad can use it and loves it."

Not everyone has this same skill. Most likely, you're at an advantage since you can expertly pass the puck where you want it. You're able to lead the receiver, for example. Something that makes a big difference and is more difficult with assisted passing. So, I really don't understand your complaint. Unless you're just saying you want everyone else to be at a disadvantage to benefit your own play.

Yes. I've tried manual passing. I'd rather keep it assisted. The game flow is better and there are less frustrating moments. Fully manual passing is unnecessary and would enhance the experience for very few.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Limp_KidzKit 

How are you personally at a disadvantage when you say this -

"Fully manual passing is easier than its ever been. My 60 year old dad can use it and loves it."

Not everyone has this same skill. Most likely, you're at an advantage since you can expertly pass the puck where you want it. You're able to lead the receiver, for example. Something that makes a big difference and is more difficult with assisted passing. So, I really don't understand your complaint. Unless you're just saying you want everyone else to be at a disadvantage to benefit your own play.

Yes. I've tried manual passing. I'd rather keep it assisted. The game flow is better and there are less frustrating moments. Fully manual passing is unnecessary and would enhance the experience for very few.

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While I will agree with you to some extent, it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. Raising the skill ceiling makes there be something to play for (on top of rewards). What I suggest though is utilize divisions for this so at the div 10 (Rookie) tier level you are full pass assist and it progressively goes down at each tier to where even Div 1 (elite) tier have their pass assist set to maybe like 10-20 to allow for some ping error. This would keep the casual level being able to play while having actual prestige for being a Div 1 type player, which right now means very little in the grand scheme. If implemented correctly, it could then be set up in private matches to really push the competition to either go full 0 assist for those high prized esports events or maybe put it at a more balanced 40-50 for the Online League community to play at. When there is nothing to play for, there is little reason to be playing the game to improve. Just an idea though. 

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote: You always feel bad for yourselves, but you can easily do everything your opponent can do. Why aren't you taking full advantage of what is given to you? Handicapping yourself isn't the answer.

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Exactly. The people so quick to make claims about things being 'too easy' etc are the ones having the most difficulty mastering them. For the most part, they're upset that they're competing against people online who make these things look easy. It's almost as if being really good at something can come off as making it look easy. 

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@hiperay wrote: it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. 

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If there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that introducing anything that can't be mastered within 2-3 play sessions results in major backlash from users who take a few successive L's immediately after something has been adjusted. 

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Limp_KidzKit 

How are you personally at a disadvantage when you say this -

"Fully manual passing is easier than its ever been. My 60 year old dad can use it and loves it."

Not everyone has this same skill. Most likely, you're at an advantage since you can expertly pass the puck where you want it. You're able to lead the receiver, for example. Something that makes a big difference and is more difficult with assisted passing. So, I really don't understand your complaint. Unless you're just saying you want everyone else to be at a disadvantage to benefit your own play.

Yes. I've tried manual passing. I'd rather keep it assisted. The game flow is better and there are less frustrating moments. Fully manual passing is unnecessary and would enhance the experience for very few.

---

Wait wait wait, are you saying that having manual passing where every pass requires precision is somehow NOT at a disadvantage to someone who needs to put LS on maybe the same half of the ice at most of their intended receiver, hitting RT, then the game will even auto sauce if need be lol? So if I put a pro call of duty player vs a casual with an aimbot, you'd tell the casual that they're at a disadvantage because the pro has mastered manual aiming lol? That's what you're going with here huh?

How is the flow of the game better? Because you can whip a 400 mph no-look backhanded pass with almost zero precision required?

Have you watched a game of Rocket League? Have you watched a game of 6s NHL? One flows like water, one like a car on square wheels. I'll let you figure out which is which.

Less frustrating moments? For who? Unskilled offensive players? What metric you using to quantify this pain (or lack thereof)? What about all the defensive points I just brought up? Game less frustrating for those players who can't realistically contain offensive players who can easily whip ridiculous passes from bad body positions while skating at superman level speeds all while having almost zero incidental contact rendering body positioning nearly useless?

This isn't a "self-serving" request for winning online games lol....Are you actually implying that online glory is my primary motive here? This is a request for this game to become a legitimate competitive game like a rocket league because funny enough, a game that has rocket powered cars hitting a soccer ball somehow "feels" like hockey unlike the "simulation" hockey offering currently on the market. And you know why that is? Because both sides of the ball are balanced and the game requires skill to be successful. There's no way a game should be catering its COMPETITIVE default setting to people who want "easy flow" and success playing the game by mindlessly tap RT with their LS in the gneral vacinity of their target . 

And again, please address my defensive comments. I want you to comment on why we keep adding manual processes, more clicks, more user input and skill to all defensive aspects of the game while simultaneously dumbing down offense to an almost embarrasingly easy level for the sake of "flow" and "accesibility" if "flow" and "accessibility" are the two primary goals/objectives of the dev team's vision. It's a contradictory vision that leads to this laughable game balance currently felt in online games.

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   @KidShowtime1867 wrote:
   

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   @KlariskraysNHL wrote: You always feel bad for yourselves, but you can easily do everything your opponent can do. Why aren't you taking full advantage of what is given to you? Handicapping yourself isn't the answer.

   ---

   Exactly. The people so quick to make claims about things being 'too easy' etc are the ones having the most difficulty mastering them. For the most part, they're upset that they're competing against people online who make these things look easy. It's almost as if being really good at something can come off as making it look easy. 

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   @hiperay wrote: it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. 

   ---

   If there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that introducing anything that can't be mastered within 2-3 play sessions results in major backlash from users who take a few successive L's immediately after something has been adjusted. 

   ---

I understand EA’s need to do so to attract new buyers but to punish loyal long term ones?  As one of the long term players, yes I can adjust and play the “easy” way but I shouldn’t have to.  I don’t want things to be easy.  I want the opposite.  I’ve enjoyed the challenge of improving my skill and mastering things throughout the years.  I should (well still am) be better at things in this game than the casual newbie.  I’ve put in my time.  New players should have to adjust to us long time players.

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@thebrazenhead75 wrote:

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote: You always feel bad for yourselves, but you can easily do everything your opponent can do. Why aren't you taking full advantage of what is given to you? Handicapping yourself isn't the answer.

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Exactly. The people so quick to make claims about things being 'too easy' etc are the ones having the most difficulty mastering them. For the most part, they're upset that they're competing against people online who make these things look easy. It's almost as if being really good at something can come off as making it look easy. 

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@hiperay wrote: it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. 

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If there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that introducing anything that can't be mastered within 2-3 play sessions results in major backlash from users who take a few successive L's immediately after something has been adjusted. 

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I understand EA’s need to do so to attract new buyers but to punish loyal long term ones?  As one of the long term players, yes I can adjust and play the “easy” way but I shouldn’t have to.  I don’t want things to be easy.  I want the opposite.  I’ve enjoyed the challenge of improving my skill and mastering things throughout the years.  New players should have to adjust to us long time players.

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I just find it funny that there's legitimate esport vets in here saying the game is too easy/unbalanced but apparently we're able to dismiss all claims and "UNO reverse" card the argument with responses like this. This game is the easiest its ever been. The skill gap couldn't be lower in the competitive scene. 16 was a "great equalizer" of a game that saw a large shift to "team play" compared to old gen titles where elite skill could and would take over games, and 19 might as well have made the game a coin flip when any two semi-positionally sound teams play. Comp 6s is actually unwatchable when games like Rocket League, CS:GO, R6 exist. The skill gap required to compete on the respective highest levels of those games absolutely dwarfs the NHL series. It's almost like saying "im a pro too" while playing hotshot racing to an iRacing Pro License holder. Just complete apples to oranges.

You don't need to be bad at a game to not like it and the opposite is true as well. I had tons of non-hockey friends playing the NHL series back when the game speed was at least semi-close to reality and the game balance was in a much better spot. They weren't good but they had fun playing. I was a really good baseball player and hated the sport my last two years playing. 

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote:
@thebrazenhead75I've been around on the NHL forums since they had come out way back in either 07 or 08. I've seen all the changes. I follow the other EA Sports titles and watch how they try to make things more accessible for others. They want people to be able to pick up and play and compete to small degree against the average people of the gaming world. I used to be a hardcore gatekeeper of wanting things to be extremely hard and such and not caring about the new players, but I do now understand the need for fresh blood to come into a game and hopefully stick around. Usually loyal people who have played for many years tend to stick around even with gripes. I mean NHL 24 at best to me is a 7/10 game. Every year I question if I just want to give up the game because it's changing in ways that maybe I don't like, but by the time it rolls around I end up caving in and getting the game.

But overall things like shooting and passing they don't want to be complicated since those are insanely important.

I'm just a 6s human only player so that is how I give my feedback. When it comes to things like Offline/Versus/HUT I'm a bit out of it. But I do know HUT is meant to be insane as the weeks pass and overalls skyrocket to god mode.

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I’ve been playing EASHL since the beginning.  It’s the only mode I play as all offline modes aren’t any challenge whatsoever.  I won’t play HUT because it’s garbage.  But for EASHL, we stuck around.  We took our lumps.  We learned and got better over the years.  That was part of the enjoyment and satisfaction.  If someone is the type of player that can’t commit to that and quits playing the game because it’s too hard then that’s the player I don’t want to play with. 

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote:
@thebrazenhead75... I used to be a hardcore gatekeeper of wanting things to be extremely hard and such and not caring about the new players, but I do now understand the need for fresh blood to come into a game and hopefully stick around. Usually loyal people who have played for many years tend to stick around even with gripes. 

But overall things like shooting and passing they don't want to be complicated since those are insanely important.

I'm just a 6s human only player so that is how I give my feedback. When it comes to things like Offline/Versus/HUT I'm a bit out of it. But I do know HUT is meant to be insane as the weeks pass and overalls skyrocket to god mode.

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I agree with this in that we absolutely do need to have "fresh blood", as you put it, in order for the game to grow. I get that we do not want stuff like shooting and passing to be complicated or it will deter new players from playing. That being said, what is wrong with my idea of it progressively decreasing as you move up tiers, not even necessarily divisions? We should want the game to be a game that is easy to learn but difficult to master but we also want the game to have something to play for. Since NHL 16, when you no longer had to play games to level up because of prebuilds, there has been little of that.  Making passing manual at the top level while giving full assistance at the lower divisions would mean there is more to play towards, and it will increase as the games change. What we have to remember here is that this is not a game like Rocket League or CSGO, which had one title last for years. This is a game that has yearly iterations and so even more so should this game be something that you can improve on as each new game comes out with a higher skill ceiling.

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@KlariskraysNHL wrote:
@hiperayI think the problem that happens is people would complain about a decrease if they match up with people in a lesser rank getting more help per say. Or you could see people tank their players. I mean when I think of sweats they gonna take advantage of stuff. These are things they have to take into consideration.

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@KlariskraysNHLI agree with you to some extent. I think the way to fix this would be to have one set assist rating for both teams based on the lowest div seed. If you look at another game the difficulty is set to what ever the lower rated player is. We could do the same for the ranked games in Chel/HUT. Whatever the lowest div is will be the level of difficulty both teams play at. This makes it so the lower team doesn't have that advantage you speak of and again that there is something more rewarding for being a "div 1 club".

An alternate way to increase the difficulty in relation to something already in the game is the visual assists. So in this scenario passing is 100% manual and you get an indicator for where you are passing it, like it is currently in the training mode. The lower the tier the longer it is:

Division 10 Club: You are brand new and given a nice meter to assist you with both regular and saucer passes. When you go up in tiers, that pass meter (not including saucers yet) decreases down to nothing lets say for Div 5.
Division 5: Congrats you now have no assistance with your regular passes and must be accurate with each one. Now its time to prove yourself as that saucer assist is now going to become shorter and shorter until you are at Division 1 and that decreases the range down to nothing by the time you get there.
Division 1: You are the elite of elite divisions. Few can stand in this realm as your passing now needs to be spot on accurate and utilized correctly in each situation without any guidance from the game. A cross crease seem pass at this level will be much more difficult to pull off than before and all of a sudden these plays that were once shrugged as nothing will be way more impressive and looked at as Top 5 plays if you will. 

Again the cream at the top has to be something worth ranking up for or this doesn't work well. For example, the top 5 clubs of each season get their club name added into the game next season or can submit their own logos (pending copyright, appropriateness, and approval of course). The top 25 players get their names added in for next season.  I know this is more resources needed and multiple game modes to think about here but I am just using this as an example. I am sure there are way smarter people with ideas requiring less resources but this was just what came up from my head in the moment.

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@hiperay wrote:

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While I will agree with you to some extent, it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. Raising the skill ceiling makes there be something to play for (on top of rewards). What I suggest though is utilize divisions for this so at the div 10 (Rookie) tier level you are full pass assist and it progressively goes down at each tier to where even Div 1 (elite) tier have their pass assist set to maybe like 10-20 to allow for some ping error. This would keep the casual level being able to play while having actual prestige for being a Div 1 type player, which right now means very little in the grand scheme. If implemented correctly, it could then be set up in private matches to really push the competition to either go full 0 assist for those high prized esports events or maybe put it at a more balanced 40-50 for the Online League community to play at. When there is nothing to play for, there is little reason to be playing the game to improve. Just an idea though. 

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I'm personally not a fan of this. I think changing up the gameplay difficulty as you rank up is going to be frustrating. There already is a skill gap with passing. Plus, you're going to be facing tougher opponents when you reach higher divisions. I don't see the need to make passing more difficult with higher ranks on top of the more challenging competition.

While I did come up with an alternative in my most recent post regarding the visual pass help tool, I will touch on this as well. I do disagree with you in thinking that passing requires skill in this game. For one, passes are constantly being forced cross crease to other players in the hopes they pick it up and bury it. Passes also have a large window of success, not a small one by any means. 

That Orange line means it will pass in that direction despite your joystick (identified by the yellow vision) being way off. I can show video if need be.
Anyways my other statement is that in this idea for it, you are lowering it gradually by 10% each division so it would not be a substantial change but a more slow paced and balanced. The idea that a Division 1, supposedly the most pristine rank in this game for a club has this passing assistance is absurd. This is four times their yellow vision at 100% pass assist.

@hiperay 

Even on full assist, you still have to aim your passes. There is less margin for error though. 

Thanks for the feedback on this.

All I am saying is that the margin for error is way to big for people who are good at the game and in the Division One clubs or Elite Ranks. Maybe this belongs in a different thread but still gonna post it here.

100 Assist.

50 Assist

10 Assist

Remember that yellow IS where I am aiming. So you are saying I could miss my player by as much as what is shown in order to still make a tape to tape pass to them? Is it so much to ask of good players to be actually good at hitting their targets? I am not saying bring it down to 0 here where even the slightest miss forces the responding player to have to skate towards the puck but is asking them to hit a target this wide (at 100) vs this wide (at 10) that bad if they are indeed this good at the game?

@hiperay 

I don't know what the exact margin for error is. I'm sure someone can go into practice mode and try it out. I do know that I occasionally miss that window though and my passes don't go where I thought I was aiming. Even with 100% assistance, you can certainly miss your target if your aim is off.

As far as your suggestion goes though, again, thanks for the feedback. 

I want to reiterate something I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread:

I would have no problem using a very involved/nuanced control layout like the one I proposed while at the same time other players use “Total Control” or any other layout in the same game.

It’s just a matter of how much control/freedom vs. how much cpu-assistance you want:

-if you want more control, more freedom, and more room for creativity, then take on a layout like the one I propose, but do so knowing it’ll be more difficult to master. 

-if you want more cpu-assistance, something simpler to learn, and don’t mind sacrificing a little creative freedom, then use a layout like Total Control and just have fun.

This way, everyone can get into the game as a beginner and have a lot of fun playing against newbies and experts alike.

If you’re a casual gamer, you don’t want to have to “train” to play a game.  But as you get better and better, you can begin to add more and more nuanced control to your layout, providing you with the freedom to be more creative.

I think, over time, a lot of people would see the advantage of having more control.   Especially people that play the game daily. I know geeks like myself don’t mind putting in a little extra practice to develop skills that give you more control. 

There are a lot of us that want more control.  And yes @EA_Aljo , for many it will be too frustrating to want to learn. But like golf and anything else worth spending time on, the challenge of mastering a skill set is most of the fun and more rewarding.  So why not provide it as an option for people like us?

Also, similar (but different) to what @hiperay suggests about divisions, give leagues the option to limit which layouts can be used.

All I know is the saucer pass needs greatly buffed.  It gets intercepted way too often and needs a speed increase on it when charged.  It was great in NHL 23 and now it's picked off by everyone with low defensive stats even up close.  It was once an important dman function but I guess with the zone pressure system they wanted to ruin that method too.  But the saucer is a manual pass so it should be rewarded for proper usage and power charged on it.

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@hiperay wrote:

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While I will agree with you to some extent, it would add a skill that would need to be mastered which would then raise the skill ceiling of the game. Raising the skill ceiling makes there be something to play for (on top of rewards). What I suggest though is utilize divisions for this so at the div 10 (Rookie) tier level you are full pass assist and it progressively goes down at each tier to where even Div 1 (elite) tier have their pass assist set to maybe like 10-20 to allow for some ping error. This would keep the casual level being able to play while having actual prestige for being a Div 1 type player, which right now means very little in the grand scheme. If implemented correctly, it could then be set up in private matches to really push the competition to either go full 0 assist for those high prized esports events or maybe put it at a more balanced 40-50 for the Online League community to play at. When there is nothing to play for, there is little reason to be playing the game to improve. Just an idea though. 

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I'm personally not a fan of this. I think changing up the gameplay difficulty as you rank up is going to be frustrating. There already is a skill gap with passing. Plus, you're going to be facing tougher opponents when you reach higher divisions. I don't see the need to make passing more difficult with higher ranks on top of the more challenging competition.

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The "skill gap" seen in passing is basically making sure you're not aiming the direct opposite of your stick. That's not a skill gap.

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@ssoliz91 wrote:

I want to reiterate something I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread:

 

I would have no problem using a very involved/nuanced control layout like the one I proposed while at the same time other players use “Total Control” or any other layout in the same game.

 

It’s just a matter of how much control/freedom vs. how much cpu-assistance you want:

-if you want more control, more freedom, and more room for creativity, then take on a layout like the one I propose, but do so knowing it’ll be more difficult to master. 

-if you want more cpu-assistance, something simpler to learn, and don’t mind sacrificing a little creative freedom, then use a layout like Total Control and just have fun.

This way, everyone can get into the game as a beginner and have a lot of fun playing against newbies and experts alike.

 

If you’re a casual gamer, you don’t want to have to “train” to play a game.  But as you get better and better, you can begin to add more and more nuanced control to your layout, providing you with the freedom to be more creative.

 

I think, over time, a lot of people would see the advantage of having more control.   Especially people that play the game daily. I know geeks like myself don’t mind putting in a little extra practice to develop skills that give you more control. 

 

 

There are a lot of us that want more control.  And yes @EA_Aljo , for many it will be too frustrating to want to learn. But like golf and anything else worth spending time on, the challenge of mastering a skill set is most of the fun and more rewarding.  So why not provide it as an option for people like us?

 

 

 

 

 

Also, similar (but different) to what @hiperay suggests about divisions, give leagues the option to limit which layouts can be used.

 

 

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🤞 hope to see at least some of these control options in NHL 25.

Don't wish too hard, we know EA's track record for giving us what we want LOL