Club Population non-existent

Hey, everyone.

We're not aware of any plans for adding cross-play for NHL 22, however I am anticipating once the new consoles are purchased this holiday season we'll see the player base increase. With the timing of this launch, players tend to hold out until Black Friday deals and general holiday shopping. When I was a kid I always got the flat out no from my parents around this time of the year when asking for a new game because they waited until mid November. ☹️ 

We're not seeing any major issue with population right now. It could be specific to region and time of the day when queuing up. In general, the weekends will always have more players online because of no school and work. If you are having some trouble matchmaking let us know what day, time, and region you're queuing up from. Those will be important details to be aware of. 

Drop-in an club populations on NA West are always "Low" every day including weekends, All evenings after 7pm.

Drop in games rarely fill up 6v6, even having forward slots not filling.  

Is there any reason why crossplay has not been considered for what is obviously a game that needs it?

(When we talk about playing NHL we ask each other if they want to play NHL 22The Search)

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@SparkOfSanity wrote:

Is there any reason why crossplay has not been considered for what is obviously a game that needs it?

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It was already a huge enough undertaking to port this to Frostbite. Doing crossplay on top of that seems unimaginably foolish. Also, for a game (franchise) that has the syncing/desyncing issues that this has, quality of life improvements like crossplay or join/rejoin game in progress I suspect are pretty non-trivial from a technical standpoint. I would not be surprised if it required a complete rewrite of their netcode, which - though, IMO, has been desperately needed for some time - is probably not on the immediate horizon.

Been playing at 9-10PM PST daily for over since 2012 and without fail have found games within 5 minutes.... This year we are lucky if we find 1 every 30-40 mins these past 3 weeks. we have actually just stopped playing after waiting. 

This is the time we always play and any other time doesn't really work for us. Our club will not buy another game unless the population is fixed. Maybe if Chel supported quick resume (Series X) so we could play something else while we waited it wouldn't be so bad... good upgrades to gameplay just no players to play it seems. The teams we de play are Div 8-10 and leave after a period. I guess I paid the next gen price to enjoy the enhanced look in the waiting room except our custom jerseys are still broken for the 6th straight week......!

@EA_Blueberry 

"We're not seeing any major issue with population right now."

Do you not play your own game? 

It's a niche game to start with that isn't cross platform,  so the player base is already pretty small.

Then you get rid of the server browser style lobbies which made it super easy to find EASHL games during low population. (I can still find full 6v6 games on PS3 with less than 100 players online).

Then this year the player base gets split into 4.

How are you not seeing major issues with population right now?  It's the worst it's ever been.

Not to mention all the new online modes that have been added the last few years (ones, threes, 3v3) which further take population away from actual Hockey (6v6).

I don't remember the last time I played a full 6v6 drop-in game, it's usually 4v3, 5v3, 5v4.

Club searches are usually very long now.  And being on the west coast it's usually a 90+ ping game on an East server.

If no cross gen or cross platform is planned for NHL23, then you need to get the old lobby system back or something similar.

6:30, Saturday, EST in Ontario. We have three people and are unable to find a game, even with +1 and best location off. It's been 10 minutes and two hosts trying to locate anyone to play.

Average search time is listed as 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

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@Fadetoblack021 wrote:

6:30, Saturday, EST in Ontario. We have three people and are unable to find a game, even with +1 and best location off. It's been 10 minutes and two hosts trying to locate anyone to play.

Average search time is listed as 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

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I remember you could play NHL 14, at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon and have zero issues finding a club game.    Now with the player base divided 16 ways come playoff time...you can't find a game at 9:00pm on a friday night within 10 minutes.   Of all the games that desperately need cross platform play...this is one of them, and I hope it comes next year.

I'm going to assume for NHL 23 there will be PS4 & XB1 versions of the game again.

If that is the case, online connectivity cannot remain the same as it is right now.

EA has to either implement cross gen and/or cross platform play, or add a server browser style lobby system along side the matchmaker, like we had on PS3/360.

@Moxrox84Ya it's not looking good

Cross play has to be coming for 23, it's the way many games are going right now.   Failure to do so would represent massive ignorance on the Dev's part.

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@Moxrox84 wrote:
@de4c0nfr05tthis version may very well be the nail in the series.

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If it wasn't for the money that HUT brings in, this series would probably be dead already.

My friends and I have had to download the PS4 version on our ps5 just so we can play in the PS4 pool to get a game. PS5 has no players in clubs.