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 h...
Forum Discussion
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
Community ManagerWe 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.
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
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.
The fact that no one on the team thought getting rid of region and room size filters was a problem speaks volumes.
Do you really think the people who work on this game aren't aware of the repercussions of the design choices they make? Especially in this community where a typo in BAP dialogue is cause for revolt?
From the perspective of actual software engineers tasked with decreasing matchmaking times, removing filters that are meant to segregate matchmaking searches would be the most obvious interim solution to achieving that goal in the short-term.
It's been annoying to be matched up against teams who have A.I. players when our team is full, but it's even more annoying waiting 10-15 minutes for a game to play.
Yes, it's rather annoying to be in Div 1 and being matched up against teams still finding their footing in Div 10 - but anyone telling you they don't find it 'fun' to beat up on those teams once in a while is lying to you. If you're a Div 10 team being matched up against pure killers, it's an opportunity to learn from the most skilled players in the game. Not everyone takes that approach to being matched up against people far more advanced in competition than them, but it's a good philosophy to have if you want to compete. You can also just back out and do another search.
I'm not "defending" these decisions either, for those of you who will inevitably crawl in here with that argument. I hate these matchmaking changes. I've been adamant about how awful these changes have been.
But I actually understand why they're being made, and I think most other people get it too. You can understand why something is being done and still be upset about it.
Once again they shoot themselves in the foot and the consumers pay for it.
It's not the problem you think it is. Anecdotally, I play on a team with guys who have busy family lives. We only get maybe 2 hours of gametime when we get together, and outside of a few rare occasions during playoffs when matchmaking is arduous grind, we've been able to collectively have fun and enjoy the game without much issue.
I wouldn't label that as EA shooting themselves in the foot when thousands of players are able to keep enjoying their game online and take these issues in stride.
- EA_Aljo
My team also has a couple guys with limited time to play. Unfortunately, we don't get to play as much as we used to. When we do, there are 4/5 of us and we rarely have issues with matchmaking. Most of the time we face other teams of 4/5. I'm sure it would be different if we were running 6s and only wanted other 6s teams. That's probably more challenging. My point is, I know there are those that are having trouble getting good matches. There are also those that are not having such a difficult time though. Of course, we want everyone to have a good experience with matchmaking and will continue to work on that becoming a reality.
What would really help is providing some details and telling us what you're experiencing instead of just saying matchmaking is bad and trashing talking the dev team. That can potentially help come to a quicker solution whereas the later really does nothing. And yes, we do play our own game. Not everyone experiences the same issues with matchmaking. Which, again, is why actual details of your experience are a lot more helpful and do actually get reported to the team.Sorry if I was misunderstood, but I don't think I've ever trash talked the development team. Expressing disappointment over a feature that's not working the greatest is not the same as trashing the people working hard to fix the problem.
I'm also not sure what 'details' can be provided when it comes to unsatisfactory matchmaking. We either match up against a full team of humans or we don't. There's not much else to say?