It’s definitely time for a change. These outdoor rinks have just become so uninspiring and boring after all these years. This comes off as laziness on EA’s part because it can’t be that hard and use too many resources to come up with a few different settings.
I’d even rather just play in a standard rink like the ones beginning clubs use. Simple white ice and lighting that doesn’t cast shadows and glare like some of the outdoor rinks do.
EA can even generate the rinks and amount of spectators based on the levels of the players. A game of 12 silver ranked players and/or less than level P1 will play in smaller rinks with nobody in the stands. The more higher the rank/level players the bigger the rink and more spectators. Very similar to Clubs. This could also be an incentive to rank up which is very similar to Clubs. Overall this could be a better experience for the majority.
first, i like all your ideas. agree that the outdoor rinks need a change. but i don't think that it's laziness as much as the Devs will just leave things as-is for too long. And i think it's quite an effort to create these outdoor rinks. I personally think that once they get something 'Done' that 'Works', they move on to something else and never come back to adjust it. like how Animations of cutscenes, for example, have largely stayed the same. They've added pre-game stuff (and even added emotes lol) but we all recognize things we've seen in this game for 8+ years. Which just kinda reinforces that idea that once the Devs are 'happy' with something, they move on to more pressing issue.
and i'm not really asking this to _you_ here, but more at the Chell crowd in general: do we expect Devs to work their employees to the bone with Crunch Time or do we want them to respect their employees time & effort in building this game. We can't have it both ways. And unfortunately the Devs don't have an unlimited supply of resources to throw at this game. believe me, i wish they did. Maybe EA should devote more time/resources to the EASHL side of the game. They don't let me see their internal numbers on who's playing what game mode the most, but I would guess they assign resources based on where the users are. (we could probably argue that they try to funnel players into the lucrative parts of their game. they are a business. as much as we'd love for them to be working For The Love Of The Game, that's just not how this works, unfortunately). Maybe if Chell was a legit Esport in the sense of: we were aware of Leagues and Players, like if you grabbed any casual League/Dota fan and asked them to name a popular Team or Player, they could. What if we had that for EASHL? I know there have been Online Leagues for years, but I'm talking household names. if there was a Chell (EA's NHL) partnership where IN-GAME i was aware of these Leagues/Players/Standings (hell, let me get the Jerseys of popular teams, etc). If Chell as an Esport had more visibility, then EA might be more inclined to devote resources to this part of the game.
again, i like all of your ideas, progressing from a simple rink up to an NHL rink, maybe even winter classic rinks (historical?!). for me, whenever i see it's Team Yellow vs Team Purple in an outdoor rink i try to backout. It's just not fun playing in the outdoor rinks. It feels like people use it as a vehicle to just go ham and play out of position!
overall, i think we could use some upgrades to our outdoor rink or like you suggested, moving to a tiered indoor game. I would love to see more time/effort/energy devoted to EASHL aspect of this game.
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