Forum Discussion

Seasoned Ace

6 months ago

EASHL needed changes

I've finally sat down and played NHL 25 and opened EASHL.. you gotta work for EA to not see all the issues, that being said I'll try to start with the good.

Events are actually a great idea. Not a huge fan of the 94 rewind rules. I never got a penalty but many of my drop in teammates did and with real time clock it's brutal! 1 fight and someone is out for 2 periods, it was funny at first but became annoying. Everyone wearing diff color uniforms is awful and worse when we played a club who wore all black and were away. All that being said I think events with diff rules and with a bit more thought put into it, it could be cool!

Club finals.. still almost 20 days away before that begins but it seems they kept the same formula and I enjoy how they do that when it comes around.

Load outs getting points through the year is a cool idea.. as I've said many times I think the whole system needs reworked though. A whole new load out builder.. enough with the +/-5 and having diff categories. It's just a bit restrictive.

CPU players. Unlike a lot of people, I just want to say that I love how the CPU plays. They are about as bad as a bad/ below average human. This pushes teams to try to fill out their team with humans. I will say the only issue with this is that there aren't more tools in place to get more people to join your club or for players to seek out clubs. Too many clubs would just depend on the CPU to bail them out and run with 2 humans on their team. I saw less of that in the games I played. Nearly every game was full except for a few. I've given plenty of ideas for tools to add players or to seek out clubs. Club play should be what this game pushes.

Now the bad..

Threes eliminator and some 3's quick play are the first two modes I jumped into. 3's quick play is still a cool mode and one I like to jump into for a warm up or to teach people to play/ get some chemistry/ test some stuff. Threes eliminator was just who could exploit game mechanics better. We did fine, I think we went 12-3 or something. We played 1 team who JUST looked for a redirect goal. At one point his teammate slapped it from their goal and it hit his teammates stick in front of our goalie and scored, it was funny but seemed a bit outrageous. I'm not sure if others feel that ability is OP but in my 15 or so hours of play that was probably the most broken thing I saw. My biggest issues with Threes though? Why are we STILL getting bags after we win rounds and have to open them??? Just give us the coins! Clubs use drop in gear, and are given random other clothing. I was wearing a Min Wild hat??? Money pucks when we play to 5 isn't the move. I still feel this mode should have been expanded. I would have home ice special rules. Your club could have Threes rules for their home ice. Instead of money pucks we could have money locations (zones that light up) or maybe a money position player so if the defenseman scores it's extra. The mode is fine but could be better.

I next went to the store to buy some stuff for my skater.. this is still embarrassingly slow. It's painful how long it takes to make a purchase and my game got stuck after making one purchase and I had to close app.

Battle pass. I hate EVERYTHING about this. I hate the giant moose, I hate the aliens, this is stupid. The load outs you can get just seem too OP. Everything about this ruins the experience and just makes it seem like you guys are extremely unfamiliar with who plays your games.. maybe just make that wild stuff for eliminator? Idk even there it's annoying but I get eliminator is supposed to be wild.

3's and 6's last I played a handful of these I played with a club in 3's and just drops in 6's. The hitting in the game is just bad.. everything about it is just overexagerated. Regular hits and hip checks all need reworked a bit. The skating feels more realistic but then you still have exploits with the turning and stuff. I do like that there seems to be multiple ways to score. Leave a guy in front of the net with a good tip? Score! D to D 1T a bit OP but it does force a team to defend that. The biggest issue is that a 1T in a good position, which would otherwise be a great play seems FAR less effective than just going in solo on a goalie and going backhand, forehand, backhand.. imo just everything needs tweaked a bit as far as a goalies ability to stop things. Admittedly I've not played much so maybe some pro teams can weigh in and tell me if I'm off here. Lastly and MOST importantly WHY would this team remove the ability to match room size??? This just blows my mind.. Have we ever received an answer as to why??

Defense In general defense feels a little better.. we will see plenty of small advantages for the offensive players but it's not as bad. I do feel it's more fair when trying to get possession of a puck. I still have a problem with forwards not having to turn and look at a puck to recieve a pass on the breakout but the defensive players needing to, but that's not likely changing. I think the poke check could use a few tweaks I think I only got 1 penalty through 15-20 games I thought I was in decent position to poke but it attacked his leg when it slowed me down and brought the stick back. I just think maybe the game shouldn't slow us down as much or maybe not slow us for 1 poke but maybe for multiple pokes? Maybe also give the poke a bit more power behind it? Sometimes it will just poke it off their stick, you slow down, they get it back, and just skate right by you. I don't want this to be like previous games where everyone is just spamming it and it should take some skill but I think some tweaks to this would go a long way.

Presentation.. goal celly please go back to how the old games did this.. club banners working this year? Grudge match just random? PLEASE have EASHL have a SET whites/ color for home and away that cannot be changed. I dont care which is which but we need a set rule. I don't want to see both teams in white or both teams in colored uniforms because it can be so confusing. Idc if you want to add light colors to their away or home instead of a white (in the past I've made away uniforms that were gray or a light blue instead of white as it worked better with our colors. idk how many times in my years in this game I've been red or black and they come out with the same colors and everyone on the ice is so confused. Also, can we have diff selections for player identification markers? I personally preferred the arrow over the head than the colored circle by their feet. It's not super important but just easier for me to see.

As I've said plenty of times.. this game could be great.. but it's just plagued with so many little issues that make it so frustrating and those little issues are just in everything. If hockey wasn't my favorite sport I'd never play this game again. Every sports game has its issues but this one just seems to never even try to fix a lot of them. I'm still unable to ready up if my teammates do when choosing a loadout, this bug has been in the game for what 3-4 years? How??? Do the devs actually play? Do our concerns ACTUALLY make it to them? Do they just not have time in 3-4 years? Was making the alien that much more important? If you want this game to sell more you guys need to work on it. Idk if you need more devs? I would be reaching out to no sleeves/ that euro streamer that's won world championships (his name is evading me) and asking them what can be done to improve the gameplay, perhaps get a retired NHL player whom wants a better game to sit down and give suggestions. Perhaps get someone who had/ has worked for 2K to give suggestions on presentation. I'm not asking for a whole world to skate around. It really does feel like we are playing ps2 and they are playing ps6! They don't have perfect gameplay either but it does feel a whole lot better. Despite what we hear they are always trying to add to the game too.. it's wild playing that game and just how far advanced it seems.

17 Replies

kKOV27
New Ace
6 months ago
Yes exact. We don't have acces to any group chat in the game so we can try to find players to play with... I remember back then we had the "Community" where we can find players to play with. A place where we go if we need someone, and be able to see his stats by clicking on his profile. Now we are stuck with the CPU or with a random player who can join which is often a player who has an average or low skill level.
Put the Youtube video at 1min50 to 2min12 this was nhl 13 and this where the players go to find someone to play and it was called "Community" and it was awesome.

And here a new video that i found about the "Community". Put the video at 2min20 and look how the lobby "Online Team Play 1-2-3" are full of players.This was the spot back then to find players. This is exactly what we need to find players to play. Instead of playing with players who have no knowledge of their level of skills. We really need something like this to comeback.
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
6 months ago
Thank you for all the constructive feedback. It's most definitely appreciated.

As always, video of the gameplay issues you've mentioned above would be great. If you feel poke checks aren't causing enough penalties, we need to see when they should be happening. In my experience, they feel like they're in a good place. This is probably the penalty I see the most, next to interference. After many years though, a lot of us have learned when and when not to poke. So, it's possible user skill has gotten better at it over time. I would love to see the slow down lessened or removed though. That's super frustrating.

We've had quite a bit of input on hitting. Some are struggling with the changes and some feel they are overexaggerated. Hopefully, we'll see them refined more in the future.

While not every dev plays, many of them do and we of course see many of the same issues. It comes down to priority though. We tend to try to address the more critical issues first. Which are the ones that prevent you from playing.

Most of your concerns will make it back to the team. Messages like yours, that are constructive and detailed are the type that get relayed. Unfortunately, there are many here that don't due to including toxic comments. There are a lot of people that feel ranting and insulting the dev team is a going to bring on change. Which, is never the case as those are typically removed and/or ignored.

I'm not a fan of the fantasy characters either. I prefer a more authentic experience. However, we have a very diverse community and many of them like using these characters.

Thanks again for all the constructive feedback.
Victavius7
New Vanguard
6 months ago
I agree with this post 100%. Spot on.
rsandersr47
Seasoned Ace
6 months ago
No, maybe I wasn't clear. I think the pokes are mostly in a good place. Just slight adjustments need to be made imo. I think the game slows us down a bit too much. I am pretty selective when I take my pokes so I don't often expect to take many penalties. I saw many others taking calls.
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
6 months ago
Thanks for the clarification. I definitely agree on the slowdown. That's really frustrating. Appreciate all the feedback.
Destroyer95
Rising Hotshot
6 months ago
I agree that EASHL is a mode that could be great with some improvements, but all I ask for now is that some of the bugs that have persisted for months/years be fixed. Icon passing being visually broken for 3+ months, club uniforms/logo resetting after every update since at least last year’s game, etc. are a few that really take the wind out of the sails of this game. It’s been mentioned so many times about how custom matchmaking filters have been disabled and won’t be returning due to the long wait times, since the player base is too small, yet core problems like these that still continue to persist for months, or even years in some cases, are contributing to driving people away from this game. I really don’t think it’s much to ask for a game to just work the way it should and is advertised.
KidShowtime1867
Hero
6 months ago
rsandersr47 wrote:
I would be reaching out to no sleeves/ that euro streamer that's won world championships (his name is evading me) and asking them what can be done to improve the gameplay
I'd much rather experienced software engineers work in conjunction with real-world players to find the balance required when virtualizing a sport - not influencers who grind exploits.
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
6 months ago
We would love to get all these issues fixed immediately. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's a case of tons to do with not enough time in the day. They need to work on the things that are more critical. Matchmaking is one of those. It's also a far, far bigger project than anyone is assuming here. It is not any kind of quick and easy fix. Those filters were not disabled. That implies we can flip a switch and turn them on. This functionality needs to be rebuilt. Not only that, but the current matchmaking needs to be removed. It's highly ingrained in the game so this is not something we can do without potentially breaking it. And that is something we're very hesitant to do with a live game until it's been rebuilt and tested.

Icon passing would have a lower priority than matchmaking. It's not prohibiting anyone from playing. It still works and is a visual issue. Yes, it's frustrating for those of you that depend on it. Even though, the majority of us spent many years manually passing, I know it sucks not to have it and it's one of the bigger issues the team wants to get addressed.

I believe the issue with uniforms can be fixed by entering into free skate. Apologies if I'm wrong, but I thought that was returning them to normal. Regardless, that too isn't exactly critical since you can still play. So, it's going to take a backseat to bigger problems.

It's very frustrating to all of us here to constantly see the disappointment from the community because these issues haven't been fixed. The reality is that they take time. A lot of time. And, any time spent on fixing the above issues as well as rebuilding matchmaking just means what's planned for the future gets pushed out. Which ends up upsetting the playerbase because there's the impression it's just a roster update with a new year on the cover. I absolutely get the frustration. I've been playing this game as long or longer than most of you here. It's the reason I came here to begin with. I too am frustrated with the current state of the game. I know the team is working very hard to get these issues resolved. Unfortunately, that's not happening as quickly as we all would like it to.
RSall14
Seasoned Veteran
6 months ago
The fact that no one on the team thought getting rid of region and room size filters was a problem speaks volumes. Once again they shoot themselves in the foot and the consumers pay for it. Not only has this effected this years game but most likely next years game as well.
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
6 months ago
This is a pretty big assumption. Of course we know there was the possibility people could be upset about these changes. Unfortunately, the new matchmaking didn't go as well as intended. I don't have details on what's coming, but matchmaking is a very big priority currently. When we have some news, we'll make an announcement.