Just got the game, playing offline on AllStar. I haven't touched any sliders as I want to see how it plays out of the box, and so far I've been getting barely any PPs or PKs. Maybe one or two if not zero.
What's the deal?
I've bumped the time up to 6 minutes and there's been no difference. Is this a thing or no one cares cuz penalties are for boomers or something?
Being playing many years offline franchise mode and never being able to leave penalty sliders at out of box level. Currently playing franchise all star, changed many sliders, rules -pens set at 4, gameplay sliders set at 90 for both cpu and cpu teammates quite a few individual penalty sliders set at 90 to see a spread if different penalties. Play 7 min periods and get up to 4 to 5 for cpu and 3 to 4 for user dependent on who I'm playing. Just check when you load your game that on main screen under rules that pens hasn't reset to 3, mine does x box series s and has been reported as a bug. Hope that helps.
From my experience playing franchise mode - knowledge that I can remember going back to NHL 21 or 20 - if you play all of your games in your franchise and seem to run 6 minutes or below the penalties seem to be less to non existent. Sadly, this amount of penalties is actually better then it was in games like NHL 23 and below.
For NHL 25 (which is better then prior games) I can go multiple games where myself or the AI doesn't take a penalty and then have a rare game where there is a few penalties on both sides (to me it seems to very RNG in this circumstance). The 2 penalties I find they call are slashing and cross check (there is little to no variety either - I fully believe that penalties like high stick/double minor high stick, any obstruction call, delay of game don't even exist in the game)
If you SIM only in franchise at 20 minute periods then there is no direct issue with penalties so it has to do with playing games and the less time but to this date I have not found a way to fix it (I have raised sliders but no affect was made).
I have just learned to not take penalties as much so at least its even on both sides not getting a man advantage.
Yeah, I wanted to play Franchise Mode, and play the games, but if the stats are NOT going to be comparable to the rest of the league, I don't see the point.
Now, I'm playing on Superstar with 6 minute periods. Shots and goals seem to be about right, However, there's barely any powerplays (either way) and Hits are insanely high. I will probably have 20 players leading in Hits a few games in.
I am enjoying franchise mode on a whole this year as at least they added some cool stuff into it. I also able to have close stats on a game to game basis. My team goalie stats are fairly on par too for GAA (S% is also another broken stat when playing a reduced time for games - also been a issue for a long as I can remember). I do see that points and goals are too high even on med level - small (outside of the games I play against the AI - but I'm not sure how bad it is overall.
I tend to also have a player closer to the top for the hits leader but even with the massive hits that happen in games (NHL 25 and 24) the only penalty that seems to be called 10% of the time is charging.
The 3 penalties I have seen in a full 82 game season for my franchise mode were (charging, cross check, slashing and rare times tripping) - I'd say for my whole team last season I got 54 penalties called on the AI (pp chances for me) - which even it close to 1 penalty per game let alone 2.
In my second season and had 2 PP’s total. I have taken maybe 6 penalties total. It’s unreal!
I assume you're playing all your games... what settings do you use?
Yeah I play every game. I put all the CPU at 100. Mine were turned down but I turned them back up to 50. Still not getting any for either side.
Have you get the rules pens set to 4 on main screen and your preset pens slider set right, every time i load the game the rules pen reverts to 3 so I reset to 4, in franchise mode then i make sure i have my preset correct and usually have cpu and cpu team mates set at 95 also most pens set to 95 ( the ones you would see called most) if you set holding to 90 ish you will defo get pens, some games i have to draw pens from cpu. Franchise allstar 7 min periods cpu 1to 4 pens per game and the same for me
