NHL 25 Holiday Update Coming Nov 15th

What size club are you playing with and how often are you getting lopsided results? Meaning, you're in a 6s club, but getting matched with 2s, 3s, 4s, no goalie, etc. We need better details on exactly what is happening with matchmaking because our data is showing otherwise. It's showing a healthy amount of 6s matches connecting. If this has to do with matches that have less than 6, that's something we need to investigate.

How are the menus bad and how is the shop broken? Menus are quite quick for me. I haven't used the shop much, but when I have, there haven't been any issues. So, it would be good to find out what is breaking with them for you.

You're more than welcome to detail the bugs you've found. I report those directly to the team. They need to include video or screenshots as well.

We never said matching team size was returning. It would be great if it did. I truly do not know if that's going to happen though. I'm trying to get some messaging to better explain the changes.

AI aren't meant to play perfect all the time. They will be improved. However, they also react to how the humans are playing. And with so many human players playing wildly out of position, it means the AI are going to be out of position as well. They move around to cover the open ice. So, when a player abandons their position, the AI scramble to make up for it. I play RD. Pretty much exclusively. I'm good about remaining in position and find that my AI D partner does a pretty competent job. Especially when I set the D to high pressure. That way, they aren't so passive. If you get video of the AI issues, I'll send it over to the team. Just saying AI bad. Fix it. Isn't going to help.

We have been releasing patches with the intent to fix various issues. The update last week was a big one. We'll have to wait and see what the next patch handles. However, if there are major changes to matchmaking, that's most likely not going to be in the next patch.

I'm trying to make this happen. Will update if/when it does.

Why was it in development? I understand the PWHL but why in the world would any resources be put towards another game mode when the game isn't even working correctly? It isn't even a major game mode people have been asking for people have been BEGGING for connected franchise. This is so random and shows how absurdly disconnected this company is from the community 

Releasing this right now feels a little tone deaf. The game is currently in a pretty bad state when it comes to bugs. Not nearly in a good enough state for a 70 dollar game from a billion dollar company. Gotta make the base game work before you add anything extra. 

Matchmaking still being broken is inexcusable, the game should not have launched with it being this bad. 

No match club size STILL. This one hurts more considering it was literally removed from the game. 24 had it already. 

The AI marketing still feels like false advertising with how the AI plays. No noticable big changes. 

The menu's are still pretty bad and the WOC shop is broken

I'm not even going to get started with be a pro.

When will we see the base game get major issues addressed? I don't want to play with big heads until the rest of the game works! 

It's live now!

A lot of the angst could be alleviated if EA would just come out and communicate what changes were made to matchmaking and why those changes were made. 

Something akin to;

"In an attempt to automatically match room size and goalie, we removed those options due to redundancy. If your team has a human goalie, it will first try to match an opponent with a human goalie (after searching for teammates, if the option is enabled). Then, it will filter out available opponents by trying to match the room size as close as possible after the goalie match. However, we're seeing issues where this process isn't taking into account the current RP level"

That would go a long way in quelling the frustration and sarcasm.

Thank you! The constructive feedback is very much appreciated.

Which time is the update releasing? 

The posts that get ignored are ones containing non-constructive and sarcastic comments. As far as ignoring issues goes, we're not doing that. As you pointed out, when I do engage on the topic of matchmaking, there's a lack of information. I repeatedly say we'll report news when we have it. Yet we keep getting comments saying we're ignoring you all. It's pointless to just respond to every post saying we're aware, we're working on it, etc. so a lot of those won't get responses.

Matchmaking is not going to be addressed quickly. I know you all are expecting that, but it's not going to happen. There were big changes and it's going to take time to dial it all in. We also can't just can't easily bring back the old filters. As much as you all think this game is copied and pasted, it's really not. Putting that system back is a lot more complex.

I'm going through this with you all. The matchmaking system is frustrating. I get that. I experience it myself. The reality is, it's going to take time to improve it. The angry comments we get here aren't going to speed that up. The constructive ones stand a much better chance of making a difference though.

I like that the arcade mode is making a comeback. It was quite enjoyable, especially as a couch play mode in the past. I understand that these releases are planned well ahead of time but at the same time I think EA should have realized that the reception on new modes of play would be received poorly given the existing issues in the game and the lack of response to them.

If the issues were minor then it might not matter as much but WOC is so broken that any announcements outside of addressing those issues will be poorly received by those who love WOC.  I'm not even bothering to play HUT this year because it seems to be a bigger grind than ever and not worth it at all for a F2P player.  So, at this point I'm spending my time in other games. I'll check out arcade, hope it's enough to keep my interest.