The defense rests

Most of the people having issues with defense are online players. I believe players themselves would all roughly be 85 OVR if it was offline and, in my opinion, goalies would sit around the 30 OVR mark (jokes but I honestly wouldn't put em over 55).

Thr AI is super easy to play against, it's the human abusers that make things difficult

How are they abusing it?

For starters, the AI players are pretty garbage at doing anything and more often than not just literally stand there and let you blow by - couple this with atrocious and extremely predictible goalies, all the pressure is put on human defenders to stop everything.

Shot/pass blocks were slow to initiate (and I found the stick doesn't even touch the ice), hipchecks were annoying to pull off because of all the clicks and could lead to easy trips, poking gave you a huge nerf to speed, offense were given a hit immunity bubble when L2ing into and around the zone, and all defensive strategies are highly outdated. Just the tip of the iceberg.

It basically comes down to humans not playing the same way the AI is programmed to. We make custom plays while the cpu needs to do everything the "right" way and defensive abilities just aren't up to par with what offense can do. 

No look passes from anywhere but are more dangerous from the corners, L2 ballerina deking everyone, ragging, goalies literally not moving on shots or giving predictible rebounds -- sure you can know its coming, but defenders risk putting the puck in the net with that many people crashing.

There are new goalie animations, hitting mechanics, and controls in 24 so we'll just have to wait and see I suppose

I was contemplating trying HUT this year, but after that post I am not feeling the same way.

Have you played 24 since they did the recent updates? Is it any better?

I don't play HUT due to.. reasons but I assume the ability to use higher rated players/goalies should help balance things.

They made changes based on feedback from the beta which is sadly over. I recommend watching a few streams of the pre-order early access to see whether or not you should pick up a copy right away. I appreciated the team trying something new and liked seeing the kinds of changes they claimed to make

After your earlier post I decided to try online.

CHEL is a piece of crap. I tried 1v1v1 and each time I would draw at least one player at least 30th level even though I was 1-3 playing them.

Two of the times I tried to play another player left almost immediately and I was 1v 1 with a 35th-49th level character. 

The best method for that game I quickly determined is to be a maximum goon and just go around knocking everyone down till you get one on one with a goalie.

What a boring massacre.

Why doesn't this scale matches?

Then I tried online versus 

No problem defending humans. Beat them 1-0 vs two humans, 2-1 vs 3 humans and 1-0 vs 4 humans.

The main problem was having multiple forecheckers coming at me all the time. I lost my first game with position locked on center, quickly saw that wasn't going to work vs multiple humans and changed it.

Shutout hockey returned with the quicker passes I could make that way.

I refuse to believe it is "easy" to win 16 playoff games n a row allowing less than a goal per game at superstar level full sim for 8 minute periods.

Daigle won 3 cups in a row before we had cap issues, then they lost in the CF once and the finals once before we just won.  So, in all he has won 4 cups his first 6 seasons and he peaked at 87 never to improve, apparently. Meanwhile other goalies who have never posted seasons like that are in their 90s.

I figured out a long time ago that overall ratings are just wrong and use my own system to determine who is the better player.

I appreciate your responses and the motivation to go online.

Think I will look into the online leagues

PS I did see them try to use the methods you described, most often the net crashing, but the most frustrating thing by far was getting knocked down over and over and over

They introduced Ones mode before all the X-Factors and it was never balanced alongside new gameplay changes so it's a shell of its former self. A shame really, as I was a previous global champ and had some amazing games with people. 

Yup, goons began to take over the mode and I think new mechanics will make it worse.

I've probably played Versus the least out of all the modes - You used to be able to do couch co op with friends, not sure if you still can but that can be pretty fun. I wish they would revert the system back so you don't keep getting matched with players using all-star/national teams.

It's easy when you game/cheat the system - human vs human is admittedly way less authentic; I have no doubt your offline experience would be more thrilling.

100% look into leagues, they have bans on certain x factors and most teams want a more authentic hockey experience with dedicated builds so it should be right up your alley

I absolutely love the concept of 1 v 1 v1 and I am sure I would enjoy it if it was balanced properly.

It was fun to play, but ultimately disappointing for the reasons I listed.

PS I think you can do couch coop, I played groups of humans more than I did vs 1. It would certainly be more fun that way