What Do we Gotta Do?
EA_Aljo What Does the Community Need to do to get results? I hate to be this guy who Just complains but my god man this game just isnt fun anymore. Unfortunately it the only hockey game out there a...
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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.
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.
No matter how a customer submit feedback it is the epitome of Six Sigma or any efficiency or error free business to review it. No matter how it comes. I work in HR professionally for a logistics company, the customer no matter how they articulate it, has every right to voice their discontent. IT IS THE JOB of the service provider to address any and all concerns. EVERY single TOP TIER BUSINESS knows this. No matter condensing, hyperbolic, or toxic the customer has a right to voice their opinion. THE business has to decipher the noise and see what is relevant. If you knew anything about Quality driven management, lean manufacturing, Kaizen or any of the leading principles for error free/ efficiency, you would know that it doesn't matter how the pain is voiced the fact remains that there is still pain. I reiterate it. It is the responsibility of the service provider to fix the pain points.
ARE you a moderator? if yes, what TOS are being violated. Are you a player? if yes, voice your concerns and joys and see the interaction. Trying to moderate or muffle everyone is not your job. Make a post about how great EA has handled x-factors and let's see how much support you get, as you are entitled to your voice. Respectfully, the evidence of pain point is clear in majority of the post in the forum (fact). So, there is obviously a PROBLEM.
THE MODERATORS will handle bad actors and things that violate the forum's TOS thank you.Oh please. You're acting more like a know-it-all moderator than I am. I didn't say there wasn't a problem. Actually, if you read more than two or three words of my post before you started cooking this absolute **bleep** of a rebuttal, you'd see that I said, quote, "I have been very critical".
All I said (which is true whether you care to understand it or not) is that hyperbolic or abusive feedback is not going to get you recognition, and that using the community manager like a punching bag is probably going to lead to less engagement. The game sells somewhere in the area of a million copies worldwide yearly, although those totals are generally only estimated. There's maybe 40 people here posting. To say that something is "unanimous" because of one tiny online echo chamber doesn't just make you sound out of touch, it makes you sound insane.
Articulate, thoughtful feedback will always get more recognition. Always. It's gotten me plenty of closed alpha/beta invites and lots of developer engagement in a small handful of games. In fact, it got me flown out to Burnaby for NHL Community Day, way back when. The team will listen. I haven't ever seen anybody at any events who just yells that the game is garbage, though. Weird stuff.
Yes I know they sold Boost packs I believe they got in trouble for doing so as well.
That Being said Boost packs are a far better Option than Xfactors. Xfactors especially this year Have to much effect on the game. Where Boost only effect the Attribute it is Tied with. 90 Hitting With +5 hitting gets you to 95 hitting that is all. TRUCULENCE gets you 100+ hitting power and 5second winded get up or some trash like that.
You know why Im mad? Why I'm highly critical of this game its because On NHL 14 They had a really good game with some flaws. Like you said Acceleration Boost were being sold even though it wasn't doing anything because the Attribute itself didnt work. So what did EA do? Instead of fixing the Problem they just started making changes to the game that literally no one asked for. They Took away attributes and had us using Prebuilds. People complained and asked for Attributes back because people enjoy being able to create their player the way they like. EA Brought Attributes back and then Xfactors came along. Now I felt The last couple years only a few Xfactors actually did what they were meant to do. NHL 25 comes out they remove Several Xfactors such as Elite Edges Never add wheels But they continue to add Prebuilds that Are able to utilize Both of these Xfactors where we as a custom build cant.
Basically the whole Reason we are where we are today is because they couldn't figure out back then how to get Some attributes to function properly. So the Completely changed the game.
Again If they want to use Xfactors they should use the system they had the last 2 years. You need to have attributes high enough to unlock the higher tier. 90+ hitting unlocks 3rd tier truculence. Id personally rather see them just go back to simpler times and bring Boost back. Get rid of Xfactors completely.
I also Understand what youre saying about my frustration level. But thats not going to change. Aljo is actually cool and usually looks at my post. Its nothing personal against Aljo and he knows this. Im honestly sick if hearing get a video and send it in. How about play the game its bad. Its been bad for years. Thats why Im frustrated. They had a good game and have completely ruined it. Theyve tried covering flaws with cosmetic costumes.
Again how do we go from NHL 14 that had more to offer when it came to gameplay to now where its just add ons Prebuids/Xfactors/cosmetics.NHL 14 was focused around the game of hockey NHL 26 is focused on micro transactions. Have you ever gone on YouTube and found the videos of what Older NHL games had that the new games dont lol its hilarious how much more detail went into the older games. Or the Videos where They show what was in the game years ago that were eventually taken out and put back into the game and claimed as new😭
Again all they Needed to do was fix the Attributes that didnt work properly on NHL 14 instead they overhauled the game. We could have a really solid game if they wouldve fixed minor issues and ran with it.
I feel you man, I really do. I just think maybe you got rose-colored glasses for NHL 14. Drag wrister still went in from pretty much anywhere in the offensive zone. Backhand forehand and forcing the cross crease were still 100% goals. Hitting was WAY overtuned at launch because of the big hits trailer. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that was the year they decided to remove the hitting input entirely and let you just skate into guys to hit them, which was a disaster. I remember it all, though. I remember the disastrous "momentum" thing and the subsequent years of it running behind the scenes while they denied it had ever been in the game at all and started banning people who talked about the dreaded ice tilt. Lol. I remember the useless boosts for real money. I remember Ramjagsingh standing there telling me they wanted to eliminate the "game within a game" mentality of tapping for the puck and making a mad rush for the cross crease one timer, and here we are 12-13 years later still talking about it.
I think probably we're in agreement a lot about the current state of the game. I'm just saying there's usually two camps of people in a group like this; there's the kind who give constructive feedback and the ones who just say "Game sucks nice job EA your game is trash and you're ruining hockey" etc etc. It's easier to get seen and heard if you're in the former group, no matter what other people think about it.
Also, that dig about the punching bag wasn't for you, the formatting just sucks on mobile. I was talking to the guy who said he thought Arjo "gave up" when he realized they made a bad game.
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- EA_Aljo4 months ago
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