What Do we Gotta Do?

He's out until 9/30

https://forums.ea.com/discussions/nhl-26-general-discussion-en/off-the-ice-til-930/12640846

Perfectly said

Thank you! Appreciate the Info

any xfactor that negatively impacts another player i.e. makes them faster, react slower, or get up slower should not be in this game. i wish x factors would just be gone but that should be the absolute minimum IMO

I thought the guy just gave up and didn't want to have anything to do with this anymore after realizing that ea just has to make a new game to "fix" the problems

The developers, to say nothing of the freaking community manager, are just as handcuffed by EA as we are, man. 

They are already working on next year's game. They have no choice. It has to be done on time and it has to dynamically appeal to enough people to sell a certain amount of copies. They will release tuner sets and make occasional updates and patches, but for the most part, NHL 26 is in the books and NHL 27 is already in the works. 

I will tell you this: from a quality control standpoint? Coming on here to say the game sucks in all caps does not get your opinion to the dev team. Saying it's the same game as last year is feedback that might be heard, but they can't do a thing about it. In the same thread, sometimes the same POST, people will complain the game is the same as last year but also complain that it isn't the same as NHL 14. An entirely new engine, an entirely new game, takes more than a year. We saw it with 15. They tried it and had to release half a game, and rightly or wrongly they were absolutely eviscerated for it. People cry and cry for change and then they get it and say it's not what they asked for and the devs should take it out. 

Also, your community manager isn't engaging with you enough? Do you think it's because you treat him the way you do? This isn't a dunk tank and he isn't allowed to say anything back in defense of himself. I'd skip your posts too.

Most if not all of this is being said in other threads with significantly more tact. I myself have been very critical. We're pretty much all in agreement that X-factors need some attention, and the community manager is in agreement and has relayed the information to the dev team. They cannot take NHL 26 back in the kitchen and make you a new one and bring it out 20 minutes later. Nobody is intentionally making a bad game to slight you.

MostlyHubris​ No where in My Post am I Mean to Aljo This isnt on him. I actually respect the guy for being the Fall guy for EA. He takes the heat when its not his fault. 

I understand this is a New Engine great. People Cry for Change and when they change something its literally nothing anyone wanted. Its as if the Feedback is just being ignored. 

My Problem is Ea adds and Removes things that people either hate or Like. Sure there is alot more added stuff on NHL 26 than there was on 14. The problem is on NHL 14 the stuff that game had actually meant something. NHL 26 is just a bunch of cosmetic garbage.

NHL 14 instead of Xfactors had Attributes Boost packs. Boost packs only counted for the one Attribute not 3 different things like an Xfactor does. Attributes are The best thing about EASHL the ability to customize your player to your play style is great. But this is Being Ruined By Xfactors. Xfactors literally make Attributes Irrelevant for the most part. Like ive said best example is. Turn up your Hitting to 95 dont use Truculence Hit a guy with 3tier Warrior you bounce off you need Truculence to counter warrior. Xfactors are a horrible system that literally no one asked for.Bring Back Boost in place of Xfactors. Or if you want to keep Xfactors make the tiers Based off of how many Attributes you put towards the Xfactor category like you saw in NHL 25. Example in order to use tier 3 Truculence you need 90 Hitting. Or tier 3 wheels you need 92 speed. 

NHL 14 Had The ability to change tour stick Curve and flex Your Skate Radius. NHL 26 you can choose from 100 chel sticks. 

NHL 26 now has more prebuilds than custom builds. Play as and orca or a shark. Get this garbage out of the game. Like ive said before You want to add stuff add new player types to customize. 

NHL 14 had a Spot where we could test Attribute in free skate. You could basically do a small Skills competition. It had The shot power radar It had target shooting cone drills and Speed test. NHL 26 has Free skate and they added a new Halloween jersey.

Remember when they removed Hybrid controls?Or took out the ability to match club size/goalie. 

Or How the just completely ignored adding on any customizable logos jersey or any thing to customize in Eashl this year? But they continue to add Prebuilds every month they continue to add Holiday uniforms or different animals to play as. 

This is why i complain NHL 14 had stuff that Added to the actual game play. The last 5 years has just been a Cosmetic Dump and nothing else.

NHL 14 we complained about Poke check being to OP or to underpowered. We asked for little things to be added or addressed like some of the Attributes that didnt work correctly.  Fast Forward to NHL 26 we complain about similar stuff but they just try and cover it up with cosmetic Add ons. Its just like Call of Duty everyone knows the game is awful and nowhere near the OG COD but for whatever reason people still play. This game is nowhere close to being as good as NHL 14 but we still play because its the only Hockey game out unfortunately its more like Circus hockey now. 

New engine or not this game didnt have to be this bad. Imagine if they would've just kept NHL 14 as the base Game and added little stuff and focused on gameplay. We would all be happy. Instead they completely butchered the game and we've been stuck with this garbage for the last 10 years. 

With how perfect you have to be on defense and goalie, I'd personally like to see the same sort of precision be made to offense. Offense gets icon passing, ability to pass or shoot at high speeds on a dime, puck pickups after a poke check, etc. For example, right now you can jam your aim to any corner and your shot will never be outside of the 6x6 area of the net, the only reason people hit the post is because of some RNG that makes your shot not hit where its aimed exactly. Get rid or that RNG and instead replace it with a more precise mechanic but make the 6x6 shot area 7x7 so that if you hit the post its because youre aim is too extreme. This would add a skill gap to offense and shooting.

Actually, at the beginning of the year in NHL 14 they were selling boosts for Acceleration while the attribute was tuned so low that it essentially did nothing and had no effect on gameplay. If you could go back to NHL 14, you'd find the forums much the same. Every year is the same screaming echo chamber about how the game is the worst game ever, and it gets traction because people only show up when they're mad that they just lost in OT. 

Hyperbole like calling the game "poop emoji" "garbage" or talking about how it's been "butchered" is not going to get you noticed. That's what I'm telling you. You asked what you have to do to get your ideas noticed. I'm answering your question: it's not this. 

Calm, collected feedback, with video support if possible. That is your ticket. Hyperbolic questioning like "how do we get back to hockey" is pointless, and nobody is going to waste time answering questions that are pointless from the beginning. The game needs tuning, which will happen. I'd love some X-factors to be removed or replaced, but I can accept that's probably not going to happen. They will not remove monetization or microtransactions, that's EA prime and there's nothing they can do about it. 

Perfectly said! 

I wish EA would make this game for their customers instead of themselves. They add completely absurd things to the game that no one has asked for.. such as those masks/skins (CHEL). 

I have a feeling that EA doesnt know how to fix and develop its own game. CHEL matchmaking for example. And generally whenever they try to fix something, something else breaks.  Updates can take up to a month or sometimes they dont come at all. Im pretty sure that they simply dont know how to fix certain things.

Another hockey game should come onto the market. Maybe then EA would start taking customer opinions more seriously.