Recommendations for HUT events in NHL 25, 26, 27...
So let me state in the beginning that last time I played NHL was during 22 which I immediately pre-ordered as I tried EA Play trial. I've been watching some content creators videos about all kinds of new stuff in HUT like HUT Rush reward system, event rewards, event challenges etc... Back in NHL 22 I don't even remember and I have a strong feeling there were no event challenges or they weren't worth a while to do. Now what bothers me when I'm considering a return to this game are how chaotic and messy the events work, there's like 50 different types of sets, sometimes there are overlapping events, sometimes all these events add to the game (most of the time) are new cards where the MSPs added don't even make sense like current NHL 24 Stanley Cup event where Lemieux and Messier who already have high ranking cards are introduced as MSPs and two random dudes, Grubauer and Kyle Connor. I think that common sense tells us to make former Conn Smythe trophy winners like John Toews, Hedman, Cale Makar, Crosby, Ovechkin, O'Reilly, preferably the ones who didn't receive as many card upgrades over the year.
There seems to be so much mess in the game with so many game modes, sets, and challenges, also different types of hockey cards and packs that one struggles to keep track of everything going on in a single day. There seem to also be an abundancy of events that are not hockey themed like NHL 23 summer surfing event, newspaper event cards, action figures cards, halloween event cards, Retro NHL 94 themed cards and plenty of other nonsense while big hockey events like junior world championship, world championship, all star game, winter classic are quite ignored. Their respective events either don't exist or these real life events only add a few cards in themed packs for a few days and that's it. What I'm trying to say here is that HUT doesn't stick to hockey with it's themes and it's choosing themes that are not interesting or even hockey oriented where the events that I imagine the game could have could be more than just a few expensive sets and new hockey cards. I'm trying to recommend a few ideas of my own for implementation of bigger and better, more exciting events which include new game modes and challenges that are tied to both regular game modes like Rivals and Seasons but also the new game modes which don't necessarily have to be online only.
In my imagination of HUT events each event could run for an entire month and apart from the traditional hut rivals and seasons mode rewards, we could be getting some special reward tracks that are filled by completing weekly challenges that are tied to both new game modes and regular ones. For example first month of game's life cycle could be dedicated to Legends which was a tradition for the past few NHL games but what I think failed was that this wasn't considered an event in past NHL games but it was rather just a bunch of Legends themed packs arriving to in game store. I think that the usual monthly event which awards you daily collectibles for logging in could be scrapped and other secondary and tertiary events that run in the game could replace the monthly event. So instead of getting October collectibles for logging into the game, you could be earning Legends collectibles which you could use in sets for Legends event that would take place for entire 30 days. Each week new batch of legends could arrive to keep the card pool refreshed and event exciting. Apart from what we usually have we could get this year's highlight called HUT Moments as an event game mode that allows players to play historical matches and earn rewards. HUT Moments is positive for HUT in my opinion but these features that are being added for the past few years need to be tied to the monthly events. For example the old and scrapped game mode where you drafted your team and then competed online or offline could be tied to an event related to a theme of NHL Draft in June for example. Sometimes I feel there are too many game modes thrown in the game all at once especially in Chel and I don't think the game or player benefits from it. I think the game could feel refreshing if we were receiving new game modes over the year like Winter Classic arenas for January Winter Classic event or skills competition for single player mini games and rewards for playing a featured game mode for February's All Star event.
There are plenty of ideas all the big hockey events that everybody loves are often put in the back somewhere behind the silly events that don't evoke anything related to hockey like action figures event and plenty of other crazy events they've put in the game over the years while they could stick to real life hockey events and make best of them. This could also pose a financial opportunity where each monthly event could also include a regular progression where players can get a high overall untradeable card or if they upgrade or purchase certain seasonal bundle, they could get increased rewards for that event. I'm always refusing to buy packs because you just never get anything valuable in return or at least that's my experience, but having a concrete reward track where I know what I'm paying for could be much more exciting and worth the money.
So here below, I will provide my event ideas for future HUT iterations that I think would benefit the excitement for the game mode back:
October - Legends event - (30 days) Has free reward track (25 levels) and bundle reward track (50 levels), unlock reward levels by completing weekly objectives, each week a new batch of Legends cards is released in the store. Part of the reward tracks are packs with untradeable Legend cards. HUT Moments is released and part of this event. You can play HUT Moments for single player to earn rewards without the pressure of online play.
November - TBD
December - Junior World Championship Event - (30 Days), Has free reward track (25 levels) and bundle reward track (50 levels), unlock reward levels by completing weekly objectives, each week a new batch of Junior player cards is released in the store. Part of the reward tracks are packs with untradeable Junior cards. Event is themed around youth players and enforces celebration of new hockey generation. HUT Moments is scrapped and new single player and online game mode are added. You can play this new game mode for single player to earn rewards without the pressure of online play which will include pond games similar to HUT Rush. The new online game mode is a simulation of world championships playoffs. There will be a certain reward system based on your wins and loses similar to how it works in world championship playoffs where if you win all games you get gold and best rewards, if you lose first game you're out without any rewards and have to restart the process of what I would call a "win climbing." You win your first game but lose second you're going to be fighting for Bronze rewards in your third game. If you lose, you're fourth and receive either some rewards or no rewards again outside earning coins for that match which was played. So you basically keep going through Quarter finals, Semi finals and Finals for gold or bronze and you keep repeating this climb to finals to earn the rewards for the event either packs, collectibles, coins or points to fill event challenges or all mentioned. Also players could get daily bonus reward as part of Christmas calendar rewards.
January - Winter Classic event - (30 Days), again same reward track system, same system of new cards being added, Event adds outside winter stadiums, every seasons and rivals game is played on a Winter Classic stadium whenever you have own such arena or not for the remainder of the event. Each game in regular game modes is played outside basically until the event concludes. You get mini games for stadium games, perhaps HUT Moments oriented on Winter Classic history returns as a single player game mode for even more rewards, weekly objectives for reward track, plenty of stuff to do outside traditional sets for MSPs.
February - All Star Event - (30 Days), all stars skills competition event is added, you play single player mini games to complete event challenges, you fill weekly challenges, earn former seasons all star jerseys through sets and filling event objectives (challenges), everything is same as previous mentioned events. Former All Star game captains are MSPs, not random players.
March - Team of the Year/Season - (30 Days), everything like previous mentioned events, EA could create some new game mode where you fight best teams of the season by year against AI as a highlight timed game mode. Your HUT team would have to beat other best teams of NHL history.
April - Stanley Cup event - (60 Days), largest event in the game outside Winter Classic event. HUT Moments return for Stanley cup history matches for single player rewards. Online game mode that simulates rewarding players based on their series wins as in real NHL playoffs. You get 7 matches, if you win 4 you move to another level (matchmaking is random here, you don't get different matchmaking pools if you are on a 1-3 series win streak) So you basically have 4 levels of rewards, you need to win 4 games and can lose up to 3 games to climb to higher level. If you win 4 series/levels (16 wins as in real life playoffs) you get largest rewards, if you lose a series, you have to start all over but still get rewarded for that earned series win. You get rewards after you conclude your run, you either win 16 wins (4 series) or you lose a serie to reset the run. This is basically same mode as Rivals, just rewards work different than Junior World Championship event online game mode.
May - World Championship sub-event (? Days) - this event interrupts the Stanley Cup event so it is a smaller scale event that runs in parallel to Stanley Cup event.
June - NHL Awards Event - no new game modes, players can get former NHL Award winners as 99 overalls by completing various event challenges. At this point in NHL lifecycle and year every player should be able to get 99 overall team by simply playing the game and completing event objectives.
Conclusion 1: So as you can see, we can have traditional hockey events that are true to hockey over newspaper event or action figure event that actually bring some value to player gameplay and engagement and aren't just new cards and sets but also new reward systems as described in online game modes being added in few event concepts I mentioned and also my imagined events bring new timed single player game modes so players aren't Zombie farming HUT Rush all year long but actually get a refreshing ever changing game modes they play. The point of NHL Awards Event should be for everyone who invests their time to be able to get 99 overall team. I like to compare this to me playing NBA 2k for the first time in my life and earning best card 99 overall team in a single month by completing various game modes and reward progressions. The reward system and event content I described should be better than what current state of HUT provides and should also be better than what NBA 2k has in their version of Ultimate Team since the event system that HUT I imagine has is tied to sports tradition and real life events, so no crazy cards, no superhero events, no surfing cards, no surfing events in an ice hockey game, no action figure events, no newspaper events, no silly events when ice-hockey world has so much to offer what can be incorporated to events and game systems.
Conclusion 2: Perhaps we could even have a bit crazier events if they wanted to but they shouldn't be the main focus of the game and should be considered a subevent that runs in parallel to the monthly event and doesn't include reward track but only brings in sets and subevent themed player cards and jerseys. That means that some points in time you could be earning large amounts of rewards working towards reward track of monthly event and also filling objectives for subevents. But when you think about further subevents that aren't crazy and true to hockey world then those are Hockey Fights Cancer where they could have packs which's money earned would go to the foundation too, then in USA during the fallen soldiers remembrance days we could have subevent tied to that which would also add the camo jerseys and new sets but no reward track since that's solely purpose of monthly events, etc... I think I provided enough concepts and ideas that could make HUT more fun and interesting for everyone. I wished they stopped pumping 60 different card themes and 60 different pack themes all at once in the store and tried to create this tradition of hockey for each month that will make you want to return to the game every year for that fun event you played last year during January or February or Stanley Cup playoffs. This would also help tidy up a bit the HUT menu space since there's like millions of sets from active seasons and also inactive ones, millions of challenges (game mode) that nobody enjoys and long term objectives that players can never reach with normal gameplay like score 10,000 goals and get 1,000 wins. I don't dig such objectives, I'd rather see short term objectives that players can earn through their free time and normal gameplay without excessive grinds and without being paired against opponents who have 6-8 higher overall team rating which make the game pain outside game release month. Even in NHL 22 I stopped playing in January because I couldn't keep upgrading X-Factors as they were becoming more expensive and the gap between my free to play team and other teams was growing larger each week and I just couldn't keep playing where the only way for me to keep up is to drop 100€ on randomized packs and hope my highest overall pulled isn't an 84. I really wished game had reward track system similar to battle pass in other games which doesn't punish you for missing out a single hour of play time on a specific day but rather a reward track which can be earned progressively or collectively on the last week of monthly event retroactively completing all weekly objectives former and current weekly objectives.
*When I say challenges in this text I usually refer to objectives, just a clarification, the challenges that are in the game right now could be scrapped all together as they don't hold any value and are mostly annoying to complete with all 3 stars.
**After each event conclusion, their respective added game modes go away to prevent low player counts across these modes. These events will go away only from HUT, but you will be able to play them again outside HUT system in regular game modes like Be A Pro or Franchise Mode.
