The State of EANHL

Well and precisely written.  I absolutely agree with everything.  I am also a high level player.  It's sad how this game is going downhill

Well and accurately written.  I absolutely agree with everything.  I am also a high level player.     It's sad how this game is going down

1. Going to assume you meant offline modes, and yea, no one is buying that, the games CAREER MODE has been unchanged for 3+ years. You guys absolutely prioritize HUT and offline modes suffer from it. As for the “significant” improvements in franchise, the biggest change didn’t even come this year. Sorry, but basic contract clauses and a new menu layout was nowhere near the improvement custom leagues was. Stop the 🧢
2. Glass breaking from shots / hits, pivot skating physics (L2), even now EA is hyping up GM connected like it should have ever been taken out of the game? In the real world, when features leave the price goes down. You know, cars, houses, etc. but in the magical world of electronic arts that is not the case. You guys also marketed the AI game sense to be completely worked over? Yea, no. Just no. I play a lot of franchise and be a pro and I’ll tell you for certain: these are the exact same coms, if not, the changes made were so minor that they are genuinely unrecognized in game (superstar difficulty) for example, when the com has puck possession pushing into the O zone along the boards and you’re gathering speed to beat your man up the middle, the com will carelessly bank the puck off of the boards with 0 power and just give it to the man defending them. I have game footage of this if you’d like a clip, but it’s the exact same “wtf does EA even watch hockey?” play from the coms that’s been happening for 4/5 games now. Do better.
3. “Not every bug is addressed every year” well it seems like none of them are unless they effect HUT (scroll back to point 1 😉) and I already addressed how this is low priority, but the FACT that it’s been in the game year after year after year 110% shows EA doesn’t care. You don’t get to make these arguments because of the price point of the product Aljo.
4. Noted, still annoying because of the price point
5. I use skill stick. And it’s not a personal skill issue as I’m still +2 per game in WOC. Just an observation of the gameplay as someone who’s played NHL at a high level for many years. I don’t see how you can make the argument that EA isn’t pursuing a casual friendly game over a skill based game but I’d love to hear you try. Already addressed that out shooting and spending most of the game in the other teams zone doesn’t mean you win every time, even referenced a study that shows hockey is indeed the luckiest sport in the world. But it does happen in this game way too often, and when it does it’s like your shooting on Carey Price while you have Jonas Fourpisalo in net LOL, and while you can make the argument that happens in real life because it most certainly does, when it comes to a video game giving both teams AI generated goalies, don’t you think they should resemble a similar skill level for 80%+ of games? Because in my personal experience, it’s not even close to that number.
6. The video evidence would just be of the gameplay for this point. I’ve stood firm on this take since the ripe age of 14 years old, this game NEEDS a skill check for pickups. If you’re not sure what that is - it’s basically a quick time event, where everyone within range of the puck would get a meter pop up. A needle moves quickly down the meter, with a tiny success zone on the meter. Players with attributes / class builds dedicated towards picking up pucks can have slightly bigger success zones, so there’s still a point in making & playing those builds. No more blaming the game for missing an interception that doesn’t leave the ice and goes right through your blade. Complete and total skill based pick ups. It is 110% worth pursuing. Please remember that the hardcore dedicated skillful players are the real fuel to the lifespan of this game, not the 12 year olds stealing mommy’s credit card trying to pack McDaddy
7. On the power play roles in franchise, it will say you have duplicate roles even if you have a different player on all three roles. You have to switch to your other power play unit, then switch back and the bug fixes itself. Again, low priority, not at all game breaking, but extremely annoying when combined with the fact that the franchise menu can be unbearably slow & how often it happens. I would say every  1/3 times that I retool my power play this bug occurs. It’s been here game after game after game, and the fact that it happens so often and has been here so long and EA doesn’t even know about it really makes me question if you guys even play your product. You know, the entire product. Not just HUT. 
8. NEW BUG: GAME SYNCHING IN WORLD OF CHEL THEN IMMEDIATELY RESUMES AT PUCK DROP?!?! ARE YOU GUYS TRYING TO GIVE US A HEART ATTACK HAHAHA WHAT IS THIS BUG 🤣😂

Thanks for the feedback. It's appreciated.

Offline modes are shoved to the side so EA can prioritize HUT. All gaming companies focus on what makes them additional money, understood, but there are bugs in these offline modes that are game breaking. There’s a bug in BAP for the past 3 games now where the entire game freezes during a coach interaction. And that’s it. Your be a pro is officially ended. I discovered this bug in both NHL 23 and 24. Reported it to the EA forums with video evidence. The reply I received was “this will continue to happen and hopefully we can fix it next game but for now, make sure to avoid quick closing/resuming your game” and when I told them that simply wasn’t good enough for the price point & people agreed, the community managers locked the post to stop further dialogue between the players.

We are not shoving online modes to the side. Franchise Mode had some pretty significant improvements in 25. Obviously, that's not the case with Be a Pro. With the vast majority of the community in online modes, most of our attention goes there as well as to gameplay. Hopefully, we'll see BaP get some attention in the future.

EANHL absolutely loves to take features out of games then add it back a few years later. Not only does this distract from other issues that need to be talked about, they commonly promote these things as being new, which is false advertisement, as is the promotion of the conversation system in be a pro, as when it first came out they marketed it as creating a way more diverse experience. Instead, my coach is telling me to go out there and swing momentum. After the game is done and I’m walking down the tunnel…

Can you show me where a feature was removed and then added back as being new and never in the game before? Where is this being falsely advertised?

There has been a cosmetic bug in the game for 4 (maybe 5) years now, where in WOC dressing room you will have on the teams uniform that you just played or are about to play. This is not a big deal but also shows the genuine carelessness and “doesn’t matter, they’ll give us their money anyways” attitude that is very readable.

Not every bug is addressed every year. This one would be considered a lower priority so the team can address more important issues. This in no way is reflective of any kind of attitude you're assuming we have. This is an incredibly complicated game. Things that aren't critical have a lower priority. We definitely don't like to have this in the game. However, when it comes to fixing an issue preventing people from playing or fixing an annoy graphical issue, the more critical problems are going to get attention first.

The menu is OVERWHELMINGLY slow for a game released in 2024. The loading times have improved. But navigating the menu itself, ESPECIALLY in franchise mode I’ve noticed is VERY slow and buggy. I click on a player to see their stats and have to wait 5 seconds before I can even start to move to the stats tab.

We've had reports about Franchise Mode menus being very slow. Restarting your console has been helping. The problem occurs when restarting the game after it's been in sleep mode.

The gameplay itself is below average. And it’s very easy to tell why as someone that’s played at a high level for a very long time - this game is aiming to be casual friendly, which is a HORRIBLE direction for almost any game to take as the dedicated players are usually the really good players. This argument is easily supported by the release of total control, as it makes moves that are supposed to take SKILL and IQ to set up & execute & makes it easy and accessible for anyone to do, even if you just loaded up an EANHL game for the first time. You dumb down the ceiling for skill, which means you allow luck to play more of a factor in the game. I have read a study that hockey is indeed the luckiest sport, but how many times in real life do you see teams out shoot their opponents by 15-20 shots and spend the entire game in the offensive zone and still lose by 2-3 goals?

We've been getting a lot of praise for the gameplay in 25. The one button moves with Total Control are easy to defend. There are also plenty of people having success with the Skill Stick controls. It's more an issue of personal skill. Just because someone has more ToA and shots, it doesn't mean they're guaranteed the win. This happens numerous times each season in real world hockey. Setting up quality scoring chances are going to be more successful than throwing the puck on net.

There are simple things that can be implemented to stop major issues. Picking up pucks requires skill IRL, especially when contested. You don’t have some magnet in your blade. Yet, in EANHL it seems like one game you do and the next game you wouldn’t be able to pick up a soccer ball with your blade if you tried. A dead by daylight styled skill check to all players within reach of the puck would be an amazing add. It doesn’t take a genius to know that just putting your player in position and HOPING that the game gets the puck for you isn’t sustainable and simply isn’t good enough. Again, price point.

Can you get me video of these issues so I can better understand what you're reporting? Pucks are picked up depending on positioning, gliding vs striding, as well as attributes.

Franchise mode power play roles are still bugged after multiple years

If you can explain this better, I'll get it reported. Please provide screenshots/video as well.

NEW BUGS: Player can’t line change in BAP and just skates into the boards & is penalized for a poor line change. Shot clock commonly reads the incorrect shots in all modes. The game commonly fully crashes in BAP mid game after simming to your next shift. I will add more new bugs to this post in the comments as I discover them, that’s if community managers don’t lock my post to stop meaningful dialogue between the players who have been ripped off.

Please post an individual report for each issue in the bug reports forum here.