Early Access Feedback Thread

Played about 10 club games over the weekend and an aborted run of threes eliminator ( more below ).  Not a great sample size to come to any firm conclusions, but here's my impressions.

There's been a noticeable improvement in how the game looks on the ice.  A definite step up from last year.

Menus are still atrociously slow.  There's no excuse for it at this point.

The lack of matchmaking search options in club ( match goalie, size, region, etc ) is baffling.  It doesn't result in faster matchmaking, as clubs will just back out and retry until they get the type of match they want.

In general I'm liking the slowed-down skating.   Although I'm finding that the acceleration when back-skating is a bit too slow.  Especially when trying to cover shifty forwards who are trying to get open for a one-timer.  Might just be an adaption issue on my part, we'll see how it goes.

The new L2 behaviour when you have the puck is great.  Without the puck in the defensive zone is a bit iffy.  Sometimes it squares me up to the puck, other times it seems to revert to just skating backwards.  Probably just another adaption issue on my end, but it can be frustrating at times.

AI Goalies continue the trend since NHL 23 of being a train-wreck.   I'm not seeing any improvements there.  All of the questionable animations and weak goals from last year seem to still be in place.  As well as some fresh new breakaway problems.

I'm not seeing any real improvements in the AI behaviour as well. 

The pressue system has issues.   It feels too fast to go up, and too slow to go down.

Threes eliminator has been rendered useless for my club.  For years we've used the mode to wind down after a particularly stressful club session.  Just a fun, goofy way to blow off some steam at the end of the night.  Twenty minutes max for a three game run and we're done.  There was a change in NHL 25 where it's not enough to be winning at the end of the five minute period.  A team actually has to get to the five goal mark.  With the right mix of negative money pucks this can extend games into absurdity.  We tried last night and quit after winning the second game because it took over half an hour to play two games in what should be a quick, casual mode.

One QOL issue I'd like is to be able to set the default handedness of my builds in WOC.  It's only an issue the first time I set up each load-out, but I'll inevitably forget to change it and be stuck playing a right-shooting player for a game.  It would be nice to be able to set it globally to default to my preference.

Overall, it feels like a pretty middle-of-the-road iteration.  Some minor improvements, some back-steps and and bunch of unaddressed issues from previous games.   It's early, and the game may look significantly different in a couple of months after some patches and tuners.  We'll have to wait and see.