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.
