EA_Aljo
Community Manager
Community ManagerNHL 25 Gameplay Deep Dive Trailer and Blog
Hey, NHL Fans! The NHL 25 Deep Dive Trailer premiers today at 11 AM EST. Catch the video below and the blog here.
Forum Discussion
What was up with how short that was? Didn't feel like a gaming deep, felt like a shallow dive. What we learned: advanced skating IQ, oh wait, already knew about that one from the TRAILER. Advanced AI, def should be an improvement, and the advanced one timer, seems cool, but also seems like something that will lead to single style goals, again. Was hoping for more from that video considering there was an extra week to prepare for the video. Most games have 15-30 min weekly deep dives prior to launch, just saying
What are they supposed to do, give you a 30 minute video of people using vision control and scoring one-timers? Sure, it was short (we're never satisfied) but it got to the point.
Plus, there are additional details at the end of the blog with some bullet points that many of us has been asking to be resolved over the course of the last year:
Goalies
- General Improvements preemptive save decisions & animations.
- Improved poke check & puck cover responsiveness and situation-solving.
- Improvements to save motion coming onto the goalposts.
- Increased save range including better solving for lacrosse goals.
- Goalies stay on their feet longer, and won’t drop to or stay in butterfly if they have time to get back up.
- Tweaks to save and capability models
- Improved readiness for controlled and redirected saves
- Rebalanced goalie precision
- Improved decision-making for positioning
- One timers
- Facing in-tight shots
- Challenge distances
- New Actions Added
- AI goalies will use the spread-v
- User goalies can saucer pass
- Goalies can cover the puck off of teammate's stick to better protect their own goals
- Post-goal emotional reactions
- Pad stack and desperation side poses are now merged
Hitting System
- Improvements to hit alignment to ensure more consistent outcomes
- New shoulder check animations from back-skating
- Improvements to shove and hit conflicts with shooting controls
- Get-up time is scaled based on player fatigue and the level of hits taken
- Fatigue drain varies based on the size of the hit delivered
- The bigger the hit the larger the stamina loss
- AI will now use the hip check
- Player sizes factor more into hit outcomes
Sustained Pressure System
- A team that activates pressure will receive 20% increase to their on-ice player stamina meters
ooh i do NOT like that pressure system change. i don't know how it'll actually play out, but i hate the logic behind it - a team that's working the puck around the zone does not magically GAIN energy after a certain amount of time irl.
You're right. It seems a little absurd to me on its face. Guess we'll have to wait for release to assess that impact.
What I was hoping for, was that instead of talking about this in bullet points, was that they would actually cover these things in a proper Deep Dive, not a shallow dive. Bullet points mean very little, actually watching the bullet points implemented in a video would be helpful. Especially when the games are expensive and people are deciding whether it is worth purchasing this edition or sticking with a previous one. This video was kind of lazy.
- EA_Aljo
Can you be more specific? What is missing that you were hoping to see? Just saying you want a proper deep dive doesn't really tell me what you want more information on.
Hopefully “paddle down” is back in the game.
- EA_Aljo
What do you want more information on? It really won't be apparent just how different the gameplay is until you get to play for yourself. It's not the easiest to show off in a trailer. There are a lot of changes the community requested. Better skating, better AI, manual one Ts, improved strategies, etc. I think the changes to vision control alone are going to be very well received. You'll just have to wait a few weeks to find out when you get your hands on it.
I'd like to know if the defensive AI was improved, and if so, to see some clips of it. The video shows off some improvements to offensive AI, but there is a lot of horrendous defensive AI play on display. Defense is where the game's AI needs improvement more urgently, please show us what has been done in that aspect.
Of course defense AI is improved but it's always gonna be subjective to how you play and position. With the AI offense getting changed up it only makes sense for the AI defense to get some changes too. If it's a huge thing to you then I'd wait til more information can be talked about if you haven't decided on getting NHL 25 or not.
All of the EA games usually have roughly a 4-6 min deep dive. FC 25 = 4:30. Madden 25 = 4:30. F1 24 = 5:15. This is not uncommon of EA to do. As for the extra week to prepare you are wrong about that. The content creators were shown a video to make their reactions on. If they were to change the video, than everyone would have to also change the content they prepped for.
Honestly though, these videos should be coming out sooner to give more information. EA does not set a good bar standard for deep dives. You want good deep dives, take a look at Cities Skylines 2, Planet Coaster 2, Planet Zoo, Starfield, etc, if they mentioned improvements on their blog/websites, it was covered in the videos. This helps drive excitement, as well as giving real information for making purchasing decisions. EA typically just relies on repeat buyers, so they put very little effort into properly promoting and developing excitement for a new release. Admittedly, will pre-order it, but that is just cuz I have bought every single NHL game since they were first released on Sega, yes I am aging myself, lol 😂
