Tune AI Goalies Back
It's pretty clear there was a shadow tune to the goalies for launch day that reverted them back to the terrible status they were left in in 24. We played all of early access and games were tight, goalies were making saves on most breakaways and penalty shots, squaring up to the open shooting threats. Games were going to OT multiple times with the winning scores being 2-1 or 3-2, smart plays were being rewarded and scoring felt like a team process and the pressure system had a purpose. Everyone was happy and pumped for launch.
Cue launch night, and our first game is an 8-7 loss against a brand new club. They scored two goals with back-handers on the red line that made the goalie lay down for no reason with zero pressure built up. Almost every other shot that they had clear vision of the shooter were going straight through them as well. The rest of the night continued the same, with teams getting 5-6 goals on less than 20 shots and the AI goalie is back to being a gigantic liability that completely throws games for your team.
We get it, people are going to refund a game that they can't pick up and immediately score, so you have to dumb it down to the lowest common denominator 1-touch control player for opening sales but something's gotta give. The goalies were in the mostly perfect spot for early-access, just tune them back up a few notches to that level again so that HeatSeeker isn't going through them on every shot from the blue line please. I understand you want people to play with human goalies but some can't or just don't want to so the AI goalie has to be somewhat competent or what are we even doing here?
The game is right back to everyone quitting games in the 1st period when the AI lets in 5 goals on 10 shots. This isn't an NBA game, every single play shouldn't result in scoring.
PLEASE don't do what you did in 24 when you publicly tuned the goalies down to completely useless levels. Literally no one asked for that and it made the overall game experience way worse.