Forum Discussion

Seasoned Newcomer

6 months ago

This series has finally died to us...

Just gonna start off by saying that my 2 friends and i have played every single year of EASHL since 2010. We're all in our 30s and work full time jobs and have very few chances to all play together o...

world of chel

rybell7

Seasoned Newcomer

6 months ago

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).

MostlyHubris

Rising Adventurer

6 months ago

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.