Nation87 wrote: Real hockey fans want the goalies re-tuned for the games to be closer and decided by smart hockey plays
In no way whatsoever should EA re-tune goalies just to make games closer. Goalies should be re-tuned to make goalies have better reactions to loose pucks, more save animation choices, etc. Their agility, balance, etc has always been determined by attributes which creates parity among goalies while playing HUT, OVP, BAP, Franchise, etc. In WoC, the goalies all share the same attributes across the board and artificially adjusting this so that "games are closer" would be an absolute travesty and nothing that any 'real hockey' fans should want.
What you're saying is that if a team is down 6-1 but is making "smart hockey plays" - the opposing goalie should become a sieve until they make it 6-5 or 6-6 in an effort to "make games closer". That's absolutely ridiculous.
Nation87 wrote:HeatSeeker/One-Tee going in from the blue line and Close Quarters going in from the red line on every shot.
Learn to defend the One-Tee. It's easy. Tight Point/Contain Puck or High Pressure. Learn to utilize manual player switching so you always take control of the high wingers covering the D.
Close Quarters does not go in on every shot.
Nation87 wrote:they'll have an even smaller player base if little kids AND sweat-lords can't pick up the game and score from everywhere on the ice to feel like McDavid
Little kids playing Play Now or other offline modes can absolutely adjust the difficulty to score from everywhere if they want.
Sweat-lords can kick rocks if they can't 'McDavid' everyone in an online environment. EA does not cater to this mindset either, as you claim. They provide balance (could be better, but it's in an okay place right now) and naturally, skilled players who excel at this game will find ways to make sure the balance always leans in their favor. That's the nature of competitive gaming and some of you would be best served to remind yourself that, at the end of the day, this is a videogame. Expecting it to be some infallible representation of a real-world sport and holding EA to task for every single frame that doesn't jive with your personal idea of what 'realism' entails is just absurd.
Nation87 wrote:they don't care about the people that actually understand and play the sport and want the game to function like that
I can assure you most people who play this game yearly have played 'real hockey' at some point in their lives and 'understand' the sport just as much as you do. They make what they think are 'real hockey' plays. Some people think seeing the same goal scored against them means their opponent "doesn't understand hockey". They seem to 'understand' it enough to continuously exploit the poor defending that's allowing them to score with impunity though.
Nation87 wrote:why do you think they added stuff like one-touch button Michigan's and a stupid silver ability for them instead of actually addressing the core mechanics of the game?
What 'core mechanics' do you think need to be addressed?
I've posed a challenge for people to post a clip here of them scoring a single Michigan goal in an online competitive environment and nothing but crickets. Ya'll make it seem like kids are just running around tapping Y/Triangle and scoring michigans at will and I just want someone to demonstrate that. Don't forget to include all the times you failed too.