I feel a big problem is that the dekes are “forced animations”. By this I mean that when we start a deke, there is a set path for the puck and skater based off of the factors of their speed and direction. This means that there is no way to alternate the aggressiveness of those dekes. You can’t one touch further up or shorter down on the right stick to modify the skaters deke angle and therefore, their final location. So a deke like the between the legs, would require you to be at a moderate speed in 24, or it would fail as the puck would miss their stick. The way to change this would be to have multiple endpoints based on where we aim our right stick when the deke is performed as mentioned above.
The next problem than becomes that if a skater is in ANY part of its path, there is no logic for them to account for this while performing the deke and so the puck bounces off a skaters stick thats mid hip check or something similar. This aspect however, MAY BE FIXED with the new reactive actions! Now we might have that logic when performing dekes so the skater adjusts their pathing based on the state of the defenders stick and skates. If this does happen, deking can get a massive buff to it and I am all for seeing dekes be more successful again.
A third problem to dekes is regarding the state a player is in when performing the deke. Dekes that separate the puck from the carrier (like a one touch, windmill etc) cause the skater to go in a “non possession” state. During this short window of time, they don’t have “control of the puck” and therefore, are immune to tripping calls (except for animations like dive and shot block). So when you go to perform the one touch and your skate incidentally comes in contact with another’s skate or stick, it causes the deke to fail when really they should be getting tripping calls. If you can get body checked when the skater is in this state, why can’t the skater draw a trip?
NitroXIIII am glad I’m not the only one labbing all this stuff like a mad man in practice mode. Keep doing what you’re doing!
LOVE that someone else is thinking as deeply about the gameplay systems as I am lol. MORE NUANCE would be GREAT for this game. Especially things that add nuance while keeping the same level of accessibility, like what you mentioned.
