This series has finally died to us...

I couldn't agree more! 

I have a similar situation...Bunch of old guy XBOX friends who have been playing NHL for many, many years.  I took like a 3 year hiatus and came back to NHL25.  I played with a friend that was new to the game and it came back to me quick, but we were getting crushed every game.  Initially, I chalked it up to my friend that was new to the game.  Then, the cheesy reoccurring goals, crap AI teammates, and crazy poor matchmaking started getting old quick.  Seemed like one player on the other team would always score 4-5 goals a game on 5-6 shots...i mean come on, that dosent happen!  If you are unfortunate enough to get an AI teammate, you are just playing shorthanded all game.  The AI skaters play with no urgency...they wont sprint, they pass extremely slow, and their reactions are ridiculous.  Don't even get me started on matchmaking....why when we lost 10 in a row are we being matched up with 4th prestige player that are diamond rank?!   

Then NHL26 came out, I reunited with my old team.  We've been playing routinely together.  We know how each other plays, we play solid hockey.  Still....we are losing 9 of 10 games, most by 5-6 goals!  Same issues as NHL25...it looks like the same exact game, EA just cut and pasted, then added a 26 everywher ethe 25 was. 

I see the same that you do.  Defense dosent exists.  They have builds that can skate, or as I call it, dance around in circles until they shake the point defender after which they zig zag through the other two defenders, through hits and poke checks, to an easy goal everytime.  And the goalie AI is just flat out crap!  These easy goals should be blocked 95% of the time.  I mean the guy will be completely to the left or right, with his teammates no where to be found, and the goalie will leave a gap on the strong side?!  WHAT!?    

I hope EA fixes some of this soon.  Otherwise I'll just move along to another game like you did.  

Initially I was telling the guys that maybe we're just too old to play games nowadays and they were quick to hit me with the reply "nah man this game just sucks" but hang in there brother. I hope it gets better for you. I gave up hope after losing like a dozen in a row all by blowout. 

Hey there. Thanks for all the feedback. It's appreciated. We are currently looking at the defensive and offensive issues that have been reported. However, defense is far from impossible. I understand it's taking time to adapt to the changes. Personally, I only play defense in WoC. Poke checks were a challenge at first, but they've been a lot better since I started being more precise with my aim. The problem seems to be when you're in very close. Poking when having a good gap hasn't been difficult. My club started off on a losing streak, but has turned that around. It's unfortunate to see you all give up so soon. Hopefully, you'll give it another shot. Especially since it's possible there will be changes that help out defense.

Just gonna start off by saying that my 2 friends and i have played every single year of EASHL since 2010.

This is how my crew is. We've lost a couple over the years, but 4 of us are still around. Not playing as much as we used to since most now have families and careers that don't let them play all night like before. I only say this because you don't need to be a kid playing for 100s of hours a week to be competitive.

Again, thanks for contributing here. The constructive feedback is absolutely appreciated.

I like how the Community Manager response here is "politely...skill issue." Like come on man, WoC is broken. Every team plays tiny guys with 97/97 speed/acceleration with wheels and/or edges and truculence. I understand trying to buff checking to counterbalance the speed/agility, but it's so out of whack now. Beefing up your player with additional size/strength against these tiny guys with truculence also makes no difference b/c the checking is so broken a 5'8" 160lb max speed sniper can also just flatten everybody. 

No variety to builds, and no chance to even try out any of the new zone abilities, b/c you simply have to have wheels/edges to have a chance. The unintended consequence of allowing every build to have every perk is that now basically everyone plays the same builds, you only see like 2-3 types of builds all night. Between that and last year's introduction of pre-builds that are just...better than any build you can make (what kind of game design is that?), it's killed what made the game fun, which was playing with, and playing against, a variety of different builds game to game.  

"Just stick with it you'll get better" is not a helpful response when the complaint is that every team plays the same way, every game plays the same way, and it's not fun. Logging on to play breakaway simulator for 4 hours is not fun. My team all maxed out our speed/acceleration and now our games ARE competitive, but it's not fun! Get rid of wheels and edges (if everyone has them, then what's the point?), re-balance the hidden stats (we know they're in there!) to penalize players that max out their speed/accel - they should not be able the fastest/most agile guys on the ice and simultaneously be able to take/dish out huge hits.  The dynamism was what made the game fun, and this year it's been completely flattened. Shame b/c the last couple years of chel were a lot of fun, last year in particular was awesome (before it was overrun with pre-builds).

The disparity has been there for years, and frankly I don't envy the developers trying to appease a worldwide fan base who all have different ideas of what hockey means.

Back in the day, people were upset that smaller guys couldn't hit. Cal Clutterbuck and Nik Kronwall (both notoriously big hitters at the time) are 5'11, you could give them 99 Checking and they couldn't knock a 200 lb guy off the puck in a hundred tries. They revamped the hitting engine. That was probably NHL 14, I distinctly remember "The Boys are Back" in the trailer with a bunch of big hits. They made it so speed mattered and the direction you were facing mattered. I thought it felt all right, but people complained, so they dialed it back, then dialed it back up when people complained, then... you get the picture. A tuner set only lasts until the no-lifers find the exploit, and then it all starts again. 

I'm not saying I disagree. I find the speed and acceleration attributes annoying to begin with. There's nobody with "80 speed" playing in the NHL and nobody with "99 speed" is breaknecking up and and down the ice at top speed for 60 minutes. There's a reason the fastest skater most years is some guy you never heard of like Miles Wood or Darren Helm. Speed matters, but very few professional skaters are creating a zone's worth in separation in 1.5 seconds from a standstill. If every player in the game can be Connor McDavid, who on earth would ever choose to be Pat Maroon? I feel like speed and acceleration need to be tuned on a smaller scale, and like X-factors that create such a huge advantage that they are "must haves" don't really have a place in the game. 

It's hard to be annoying in NHL 26 if you don't have the puck. Defenseman can't be relentless because you'll just get beat backdoor with a blind pass made with 100% accuracy if you don't leave yourself an out. Same deal with a defensive forward build like a TWF (eh) or a Grinder, which has been obliterated and is essentially useless. When I think of a Grinder I think of a guy like Kris Draper. Not a shred of natural talent in his body, just every shift out there being a huge pest to the other team with nothing but pure effort. You could not get rid of that guy, and if you tried he'd just work harder. Other teams hated playing against that line because you didn't have time to think, you'd just get hit or hacked or elbowed in every corner until you just wanted to get off the ice. He was proof that you could overcome skill with effort. That's why they call it grinding. The Grinder in EANHL at this point is just an unthugged enforcer with no niche. You add in the fact that "skill" (intangible) is tied up in numbers and all you have to do is skate towards the net and shoot to get rewarded on offense, it's in a bad spot. 

I just made a nice long comment similar, but EASHL is in a REALLY bad spot right now.   It hasn't been this bad gameplay wise in a few years.   As usual, the first couple tuners nuked what was absolutely solid gameplay out of the box.   Now, we all know what the patch/tuner notes say, pretty sure 99% of us can read...however, the difference in game play points towards things being tweaked behind the scenes that weren't noted...

EA_Aljo wrote:

Poke checks were a challenge at first, but they've been a lot better since I started being more precise with my aim. The problem seems to be when you're in very close. Poking when having a good gap hasn't been difficult.

Can you elaborate on how you're aiming your poke checks? There seems to be a big change to the simple poke (hitting R1). Previously, it would aim to the puck's location on the frame the poke check was initiated. Meaning, if the puck carrier moved the puck at the next frame, by the time the poke check arrives at the puck - it's position has moved - resulting in a miss. More often than not, however, most players don't have the twitch skill to react in time, so poke checks were largely successful.

It appears to me, since the X-Factor revamp, the poke check ability seemingly has a randomized error state where the poke checks will simply avoid the puck altogether and miss wildly despite the puck carrier not moving the puck via stick handling at all. This is the major change that I think is contributing to the poke check 'issue' people are describing. 

Personally, I've found the same as you: Poke checks require better gap coverage and they will no longer work in close like they used to. once you make this adjustment, you seem to be able to get better success. Your 'aim' comment makes me think there's something else that's been added to the mechanic that maybe hasn't been properly communicated to the player-base. 

EA_Aljo wrote:

My club started off on a losing streak, but has turned that around.

Exact same here. We were very discouraged off the bat but once those of us who play D finally started finding the groove with the poke check and X-Factor combinations that suit our playstyles, we've been finding more success. 

I think the expectation of players to have the same skill level and dominance that they did in previous years runs contrary to the same expectations of a new game every year. They clamour for 'new' gameplay elements, and then rage about not being copletely adept at them on day 1. 

All that being said, I think Poke Check without X-Factors needs a tiny bump in its ability to disrupt puck possession. 

rybell7 wrote:

I like how the Community Manager response here is "politely...skill issue."

Despite the needed bump like I mentioned, I still think there is a skill issue here that the community hasn't caught up to yet. There's been a change in how EA intends the poke check to work but they haven't clearly communicated that by way of a video from the studio showcasing exactly how they want us to execute this. It seems we're left to discover this on our own. 

rybell7 wrote:

I understand trying to buff checking to counterbalance the speed/agility, but it's so out of whack now.

You're right. It seems they re-introduced tractor beam hitting and removed any speed penalties for missing a hit as some kind of response to the waterbugs in WoC. But those same waterbugs can apply truculence and use the tractor beam hitting to not only keep opponents down for an unrealistic amount of time but use their insane speed/accel to speed by downed players. It's definitely out of whack. 

rybell7 wrote:

"Just stick with it you'll get better" is not a helpful response when the complaint is that every team plays the same way, every game plays the same way, and it's not fun. Logging on to play breakaway simulator for 4 hours is not fun.

I think both can be true: Poke checks need a buff and players need to stick with the underlying changes, learn them, adapt and they will get better. 

If you're giving up breakaways all game long, your defenders are doing something terribly wrong. 

rybell7 wrote:

My team all maxed out our speed/acceleration and now our games ARE competitive,

Our team adjusted by applying truculence. Defence has truculence, stick em up and quick pick. No need for wheels if you're observing turnovers and possession changes intently rather than looking for ways to jump up into the play on every zone possession. 

I don't play online I just play Be A Pro but I will say that you are right on the X-factors. I play an enforcer defenseman and out of 11 X-factors, 8 were geared to offense. why would an enforcer, whose job is to punish the opposition and fight, need big tipper or wheels, or elite edges, or even big rig (I'm not 'driving to the net')? if you play defense then ALL your X-factors need to be geared to defensive abilities. now if your a mix between offense/defense (power forward or 2-way D) then it should be a mix but not both wheels/elite edges AND truculence and some of the other checking abilities. like even if you have them all in the X-factor selection menu, if you choose say wheels then truculence and other hard hitting abilities are grayed out and you cannot select them. something like that. its so difficult in BaP with computer AI, I can't even imagine playing with human players who learned all the exploits to scoring goals which this game is geared to anyway in any game mode

I like how the Community Manager response here is "politely...skill issue." Like come on man, WoC is broken. Every team plays tiny guys with 97/97 speed/acceleration with wheels and/or edges and truculence. I understand trying to buff checking to counterbalance the speed/agility, but it's so out of whack now. Beefing up your player with additional size/strength against these tiny guys with truculence also makes no difference b/c the checking is so broken a 5'8" 160lb max speed sniper can also just flatten everybody. 

My defender is 6'1", 150lbs. I use All-Star Stick 'em up, Wheels and Elite Edges. There are definitely times I get beat due to going up against speedy players. Most of the time, I'm paying attention to the positioning of the other team so I can put myself in better position to stop them. I fully agree that the focus on speed needs to come down. I'm not a fan of being able to have 97 speed/accel. Hopefully, we'll see that tuned better. Regardless, you significantly raise your chances of defending them by playing more conservative defense. It's also a team effort. In many cases, my teammates have a strong forecheck so they stop the other team's breakout before it happens. If I see one developing though, I'm dropping back to defend it. 

I also have had no problem with the pre-builds. At the end of the day, the attributes don't mean anything unless the player using them has the skill to do so. The chances of someone unskilled suddenly becoming unstoppable is probably not going to happen. So, someone with that skill can most likely take almost any build and still be competitive.

I also agree that you're required to use Wheels and Elite Edges to keep up. I'd love to see this changed so I can use other abilities. The current meta pretty much requires me to use these. This is why it's not breakaway after breakaway for me. I also typically have a good D partner to help out. I know some of you are playing 2s and 3s with AI defenders.

I know people hate to be called out on skill. I'm most definitely not saying this is entirely a skill issue. Speed is too high. Truculence is ridiculous. I'd love to see changes be made. However, skill still plays a part. Teams aren't losing solely due to pre-builds and OP abilities. Have you tried running the same builds to see if you start getting more wins?  You also have to consider team chemistry. People put so much reliance on individual abilities when this is a team sport. If you're not supporting each other, your opponents are going to find it a lot easier to breakout, intercept passes, anticipate your moves, etc. So, yes, skill definitely plays a role because no matter how strong your abilities are, without knowing how to use them and if a team isn't working together well, you're not going to be as successful.

While I fully agree skill is important and that a skill gap in online gaming is really mandatory (otherwise there's not much dynamic gameplay happening), I don't know that I agree that teams aren't losing solely due to OP abilities. I would argue that a skilled, experienced team can absolutely lose games to average to bad players being juiced up with Wheels, EE, Truculence and an absolutely absurd window for late hits. Pretty frequently I make my breakout pass, see the hit coming, take steps to avoid it, and as a result I get thugged a full two to three seconds later than the guy initially tried to hit me, and there's still no call. Even if I give up an X-factor slot for a negatory one (by that I mean something like Warrior which has no active effect but simply lessens the harmful effects of another X-factor), being chased for an extra three seconds and then having to get up from a late hit for another three to five seconds is way, way more than enough time for a mid team to force/get a turnover and score a 2-on-1 goal they earned through exploiting. When you give those tools to a team that KNOWS they're exploiting, yikes. You're going to have a bad time.