Why I don't like NHL 24

I played a game last night that a guy got two goals in the final minute by taking shots below the circle almost at the board. Not like two different shots identical and it's  because people can just spin out of stuff and it forces people to skate, also I am saying the offense needs to improve in how they cut and how they skate. If you get the puck near the point the two wingers will just stand around waiting for a pass that's not hockey. 

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@llamaverox wrote:

I played a game last night that a guy got two goals in the final minute by taking shots below the circle almost at the board. Not like two different shots identical and it's  because people can just spin out of stuff and it forces people to skate, also I am saying the offense needs to improve in how they cut and how they skate. If you get the puck near the point the two wingers will just stand around waiting for a pass that's not hockey. 

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What strategies are you using? Can you get some video showing your wingers standing around?

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

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@llamaverox wrote:

I played a game last night that a guy got two goals in the final minute by taking shots below the circle almost at the board. Not like two different shots identical and it's  because people can just spin out of stuff and it forces people to skate, also I am saying the offense needs to improve in how they cut and how they skate. If you get the puck near the point the two wingers will just stand around waiting for a pass that's not hockey. 

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What strategies are you using? Can you get some video showing your wingers standing around?

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You need video of this? Just play a game. The 8 AI players in any given zone possession spend more time standing still than they do moving. The movement they do decide to do is simply "covering" for the puck carrier's vacant spot no matter how inefficient or useless the path they take is.

This is extremely noticeable if you fire up a game of NHL20 or any title before. The AI are actually aggressive to a fault rather than participating in the manikin challenge. NHL 21 and beyond sees almost zero off-puck movement from any of the AI players.

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@Limp_KidzKit wrote:

You need video of this? Just play a game.

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Brother, if the ai is as bad as you claim it should be extremely easy to capture a clip of your specific issues with the a.i. 

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@Limp_KidzKit wrote:

You need video of this? Just play a game.

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Brother, if the ai is as bad as you claim it should be extremely easy to capture a clip of your specific issues with the a.i. 

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not my video but https://youtube.com/shorts/208cVqGR-DA?si=sDVOMSnr8EytRQiV two guys standing low post  at the beginning, the wingers stand directly behind the defensive player minorly shifting back and forth when below the net.

@llamaverox 

I don't know what strategies they're using. Also, where do you want them to go? The puck is being taken behind the net. The far side winger moves to the back door when the puck comes around the other side. The near side winger isn't going to go to the far side and potentially put 2 players in the same spot.

Again, I'm not saying the AI never do this, but I'm also just not seeing them standing around doing nothing when they should be more active. 

@EA_AljoSo the center and lw will sit low post 2 feet away from each other when driving in as designed? I find that hard to believe. Even when he gets the puck the c does not make a move to get open they skate 2 feet away meaning that if passed to the pass reception will be delayed and it's easily defended.

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@llamaverox wrote:

@EA_AljoSo the center and lw will sit low post 2 feet away from each other when driving in as designed? I find that hard to believe.

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Are you familiar with the strategy, "Crash the net"?

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@llamaverox wrote: Even when he gets the puck the c does not make a move to get open

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You mean how the Centre literally skates backwards, in a prime shooting position awaiting a pass?

Watch #20 - Centre. Once possession is gained, he instantly begins working to get open and also has the situational awareness to remain facing the net:

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@llamaverox wrote: if passed to the pass reception will be delayed and it's easily defended.

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How on earth would this pass be easily defended?

This clip also gives us a little window into what habits players have that are preventing them from defending cross-crease goals.

Watch the person controlling Columbus switch to the defender in front of the net (Good move) and INSTANTLY mash poke check. This negates that player's ability to utilize their def. awareness, hand-eye etc to disrupt that play because the human is instructing the player to mash poke check with no credence to the situation:

This is also a great example of why video clips are requested so much. The descriptions that people come up with for what's happening can wildly vary from what is actually happening. There's a denial that the centre in this clip is getting open and that when he does get open, any pass to them would be 'easily defended' yet the clip clearly shows a crash-the-net strategy and an a.i. centre that is actually playing really solid positional hockey. 

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@PlayoffError wrote:
@KidShowtime1867I'm going to disagree just a smidge about #20 getting open. He's open, but he's not useful.

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You're right, but I'm not claiming anything about his usefulness. OP says the centre "doesn't make a move to get open" and I'm just pointing out that he actually does.

I would argue that the proximity of the C makes for a great give-and-go play. 

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@PlayoffError wrote:
IMO as soon as that puck was picked up below the goal line #20 should have been backing off towards the hash marks instead of the faceoff dot. This would still keep him open but would make him an actual threat if he got a pass which would make both him and the player with the puck threats the goalie and defenders would have to worry about.

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You're right, but again - OP is claiming the a.i. just isn't getting open and that any passes would've been "easily defended".

He didn't mash poke check the puck was already ignored by his player and he hits poke check in desperation as a last attempt to stop it.

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@llamaverox wrote:

He didn't mash poke check the puck was already ignored by his player and he hits poke check in desperation as a last attempt to stop it.

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His player didn't "ignore the puck".  There's a known habit of users instantly hitting (or mashing) poke check at the exact moment they switch control to a player. That's what happened in that clip and it prevented the net-front D from being able to execute a pickup/intercept animation. 

Looking at the clip again, the player actually enters DSS and skates away from the threat:

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@Limp_KidzKit wrote:

You need video of this? Just play a game.

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Brother, if the ai is as bad as you claim it should be extremely easy to capture a clip of your specific issues with the a.i. 

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I really don't appreciate the demeaning pet names, first of all. Second, nobody should be asked to provide video of something that happens 1000 times a game. Do you actually think the AI dont have a target location that they go to and stand at until something triggers them to move? I believe you've made this literal argument in the past that AI need something to trigger them to move/react to, no? So now you're saying they do move with free will? They're sentient?

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@llamaverox wrote:

@EA_AljoSo the center and lw will sit low post 2 feet away from each other when driving in as designed? I find that hard to believe.

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Are you familiar with the strategy, "Crash the net"?

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@llamaverox wrote: Even when he gets the puck the c does not make a move to get open

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You mean how the Centre literally skates backwards, in a prime shooting position awaiting a pass?

Watch #20 - Centre. Once possession is gained, he instantly begins working to get open and also has the situational awareness to remain facing the net:

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@llamaverox wrote: if passed to the pass reception will be delayed and it's easily defended.

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How on earth would this pass be easily defended?

This clip also gives us a little window into what habits players have that are preventing them from defending cross-crease goals.

Watch the person controlling Columbus switch to the defender in front of the net (Good move) and INSTANTLY mash poke check. This negates that player's ability to utilize their def. awareness, hand-eye etc to disrupt that play because the human is instructing the player to mash poke check with no credence to the situation:

This is also a great example of why video clips are requested so much. The descriptions that people come up with for what's happening can wildly vary from what is actually happening. There's a denial that the centre in this clip is getting open and that when he does get open, any pass to them would be 'easily defended' yet the clip clearly shows a crash-the-net strategy and an a.i. centre that is actually playing really solid positional hockey. 

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He was referring to the rush where you can see both offensive players clearly ontop of eachother in the same lane rather than having a center drive or a center trail depending on the rush scenario. 

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@llamaverox wrote:

@EA_AljoSo the center and lw will sit low post 2 feet away from each other when driving in as designed? I find that hard to believe.

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Are you familiar with the strategy, "Crash the net"?

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@llamaverox wrote: Even when he gets the puck the c does not make a move to get open

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You mean how the Centre literally skates backwards, in a prime shooting position awaiting a pass?

Watch #20 - Centre. Once possession is gained, he instantly begins working to get open and also has the situational awareness to remain facing the net:

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@llamaverox wrote: if passed to the pass reception will be delayed and it's easily defended.

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How on earth would this pass be easily defended?

This clip also gives us a little window into what habits players have that are preventing them from defending cross-crease goals.

Watch the person controlling Columbus switch to the defender in front of the net (Good move) and INSTANTLY mash poke check. This negates that player's ability to utilize their def. awareness, hand-eye etc to disrupt that play because the human is instructing the player to mash poke check with no credence to the situation:

This is also a great example of why video clips are requested so much. The descriptions that people come up with for what's happening can wildly vary from what is actually happening. There's a denial that the centre in this clip is getting open and that when he does get open, any pass to them would be 'easily defended' yet the clip clearly shows a crash-the-net strategy and an a.i. centre that is actually playing really solid positional hockey. 

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How did a video clip help since you ddin't even bother addressing the part of the clip that was wanting to be discussed? He mentions two AI ontop of eachother on the post at the start of the video and you failed to include any commentary on that.

He is also saying that the guy in the passing lane didn't ignore the puck which he clearly did before switching to him and mashing poke check to try and desperately stop it.

Showtime I'm not saying you are incorrect for what you are pointing out, you cherry pick what you want to show because it fits what you want to say about the game. His guy did ignore the puck on the sauce pass, makes no reaction til he switches and tries to poke.

The reason he skates up is because the players react so badly, even if he didn't mash poke check there unless the pass recipient bobbled as close passes normally do, like the C in that clip would have meaning it would of been easily defended. He wouldn't of gotten there anyway

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@llamaverox wrote:

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He is also saying that the guy in the passing lane didn't ignore the puck which he clearly did before switching to him and mashing poke check to try and desperately stop it.

Showtime I'm not saying you are incorrect for what you are pointing out, you cherry pick what you want to show because it fits what you want to say about the game. His guy did ignore the puck on the sauce pass, makes no reaction til he switches and tries to poke.

The reason he skates up is because the players react so badly, even if he didn't mash poke check there unless the pass recipient bobbled as close passes normally do, like the C in that clip would have meaning it would of been easily defended. He wouldn't of gotten there anyway

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100% right about everything here. Yet another example of video being provided being a detriment to the conversation because showtime is right about the items he showed, but the first question was about the rush opportunity and that didn't get addressed. 

Again, regardless of skill don't we all want to see more supportive AI who can execute a 3-on-2 better than your local U8 team? I mean, I would love to see the AI center drive properly like they used to do pre NHL 21. I would love to see anything but two guys quite literally touching each other on a 3-on-2. These things did not used to happen as regularly on pre 21 titles as they do now. These puck support issues being resolved or at least mitigated are crucial to the flow of the game as they are fundamental plays of the sport. The game cant flow even remotely close to the sport if the AI cant do fundamental things right consistently. "skill" in a sports game should involve executing the fundamental concepts of said sport. I'd argue that should be much more of the skill than your "twitch skills" but right now, we really only have the "twitch skill" element to the game because the fundamental hockey piece is so far off. It would help literally everyone to have that side of the house cleaned up!

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@Limp_KidzKit wrote:

How did a video clip help since you ddin't even bother addressing the part of the clip that was wanting to be discussed? He mentions two AI ontop of eachother on the post at the start of the video and you failed to include any commentary on that.

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You failed to understand my point about Crash the Net I see. They aren't 'on top of each other'. They're crashing the net. Net-Front is tight quarters and it's easy to characterize two players in very close proximity as "on top of each other" - but that's an incorrect claim. 

If you familiarize yourself with the Crash the Net strategy, you'll see why two forwards may end up being very close to each other for a few frames. 

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@KidShowtime1867 wrote:

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@Limp_KidzKit wrote:

How did a video clip help since you ddin't even bother addressing the part of the clip that was wanting to be discussed? He mentions two AI ontop of eachother on the post at the start of the video and you failed to include any commentary on that.

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You failed to understand my point about Crash the Net I see. They aren't 'on top of each other'. They're crashing the net. Net-Front is tight quarters and it's easy to characterize two players in very close proximity as "on top of each other" - but that's an incorrect claim. 

If you familiarize yourself with the Crash the Net strategy, you'll see why two forwards may end up being very close to each other for a few frames. 

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No, I understood it quite well and it doesn't excuse why two players on a 3-on-2 would be stacked on top of each other in the same lane. It also doesn't explain why you didn't comment on the clip that OP clearly wanted to discuss, proving my point that videos uploaded here rarely lead to any more constructive conversations that non-video threads.

For argument's sake though, let's say that line strategies do have an impact on rush chances. Can you please breakdown the differences between the three line strategies in terms of how you'd expect the respective options to attack the zone during a rush chance? Please and thanks.

https://youtu.be/1-LgREvF8QE?si=Uhzw5RZgrt6NQYZu

Here is another example. The result of the play is me scoring but, the amount of times I can poke the puck out and him still get it back is atrocious. If I go for a hit he is gonna wheel by me. 

I score once again because the only option in this game for a passing option that is viable is the cross crease pass. You wouldn't pass two feet to your right when you are already outside of your right post. That winger next to my puck carrier should either be cutting behind or to behind the net. However he just skates even 3 feet away.