NHL 25 Holiday Update Coming Nov 15th

When I say something along the lines of "we have no details, we are aware", etc. that means exactly that. I don't have anything I can relay at the time. In most cases, we put out a patch that addresses those issues. I'm not going to post speculative details that could be inaccurate. I need to wait until we have an update that is officially confirmed. Which means, I have to wait until it's announced on a blog or Twitter. There are times when an update could be pulled at the last minute when an issue is found. If we announce something and pull it back, it obviously upsets the community. So, we need to wait until we're sure.

GM Connected was last in the game about 10 years ago. I don't have data from that time when it was discussed. If you want to believe that's speculation, that's fine. So far though, returning this mode has been met with a lot of praise. I imagine GM Connected would be as well. However, that's a huge project that is going to take time. 

When we have news on matchmaking, we'll announce it.

Thanks for the response. I understand what you mean when you say those things, however, it doesn't do much for us customers on where things stand. It's ambiguous at best. I know you don't make these decisions, but someone higher up needs to let the cat out of the bag on some of the issues. Don't you think that EA changing matchmaking without telling anyone is upsetting the community? The team didn't care to think that it would, so why would pulling an update be such a hideous offense? I mean placing the blame on consumers by saying something like "it obviously upsets the community" is just a cop out, no offense.

I don't have a horse in the race concerning GM Connected vs NHL Arcade, but my previous comment regarding speculation was aimed at your comments towards NHL Arcade, and the fact I don't see many posts praising NHL Arcade being released. You mentioned it being released because it's a fun mode, you never played GM Connected, but you and your friends played NHL Arcade. This is what I meant by speculation. It's also why I asked who is making the decisions? Is it the team? A select few? Streamers? I don't expect an answer, but it seems like decisions are being made internally with what the team feels is fun, important, or deserved of priority.

I mean, how many years has the community been asking for a way to deal with trolls in the game? We get nothing. Then, someone at EA, or the team, decides it would be a good idea to boot players from a club game over team play. Who wouldn't see this as an issue? It's short sighted just because of the allowance of drop-in players in club. Or maybe it's laziness. I don't know. I could go on and on: the pressure system, puck dumps, presentation, etc.

Either way, it still looks bad to release this with the state of the game, the issues the community has been asking for, and the number of bugs still in the game year after year. I speculate matchmaking was changed due to the issue of player numbers, especially considering last gen consoles were not going to be supported. And this was hidden from us. Again, this is just speculation, but what else are we left with?

I am trying to get some more information on the matchmaking changes. I'll provide an update when I have news.

I only used my mentioning of enjoying 3v3 Arcade as a counter example to the claim that was made where someone and their friends played GMC so they felt it deserved more attention than bringing back 3v3 Arcade. The decision was made by the team here. Not streamers. Again, this was in the works for a long time and had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the matchmaking changes or any post-launch updates.

Anti-griefing measures could be improved. This is a system that would need to be fully developed and I hope it happens. Trolling in drop-ins has been an issue since EASHL first launched. A vote kick feature would be great, but most likely abused. The more strict we make the automated kicking, the more often players are unfairly punished. It's something we would all love, but we also have to prioritize our resources and make sure we're giving attention to the most important areas. Yes, I get that's up for debate. Not everyone has the same list of what's important to them. I'm sure many would be happy to forego that if it meant GMC returned while many others would give up GMC for better anti-griefing features.

There's a lot of speculation on why matchmaking changes were made. They are highly inaccurate, but I don't blame you all with the lack of information we've provided on this. All I can tell you is that the intent was to improve matchmaking. We wanted to get players into games faster. Personally, I'm getting into matches as quickly as I did in previous years. However, I'm also normally not running with a human goalie so that helps. We normally run 4s and 5s and have had very little issue with finding similar teams. That doesn't mean everyone is having the same experience of course. I know a lot of you running 6s aren't finding matching opponents. The available player pool is going to play a role in that as well. With goalie being one of the less commonly played positions, it's understandable it would be harder to match human goalies. If we brought this filter back, chances are excellent you'd be waiting longer, but I imagine that's preferred over matching with an AI goalie.

I'm also curious which bugs you're talking about that have been in the game for years. I'm not denying this. Just wondering which ones specifically so I can look into these.