All your complaints are valid. I can't disagree. The teammate AI somehow just got broken somewhere along the line.
I am excited for NHL 25, though, and I'll tell you why.
NHL games were my go-to game for decades. I bought the genesis cartridges from NHLPA years up until 94, when I switched to the far superior PC versions. I eventually bought PS3 and PS4 consoles specifically for NHL games.
The product from 15-17 were so bad that I just quit. I didn't understand how the game could degenerate from 14 on PS3 to the new generation so much. 3 years in a row of terrible added gameplay "features", aspects of franchise mode no longer making any sense at all (I'm a franchise player), and, despite leaps in graphics capabilities, it seemed like fewer and fewer players actually looked like the real life player (I was spoiled by PC NHL in which almost every player had their IRL photo mapped to the in-game sprite).
I don't know that there's a more disillusioned life-long fan than the one who just ignores the franchise for 6 releases.
All that being said, when NHL 24 came to cloud gaming I decided to try it out. It's brought me back. The gameplay gives me the old "anything can happen" vibe, that I had found lacking for years. Custom League is the greatest thing to happen to franchise focused players. It's not perfect, but I find it to be greatly improved on the years that drove me from the game.
There were things I hated about 24, no doubt. AI teammates playing like atom level house-leaguers, creation zone still hasn't improved nearly 10 years on (all I ask is that if you're going to make us use logos designed by 10th grade art students, you have a play-by-play name that matches it in some way), AI GMs in franchise mode over-value their players in trades by about a million percent... I won't go on...
I'm on the very edge of buying a console so that I can get into NHL 25 properly. I don't know if 25 will ever come to cloud gaming on Game Pass, and I don't want to wait 8-10 months to dig in.
I can't fathom how offline-only players play with NHL24's AI teammates. They are incredibly bad at playing offense. Especially when you player-lock. No cutbacks at the half boards, no creation of space, etc etc. It's a struggle to watch.
