NHL 21 complete mess!
What happened to EA??? They used to be so... average.... at making hockey hockey games. This one is a complete mess. The goalies are non existent. Even with the sliders all the way to 100, the goalie...
Forum Discussion
I appreciate the response but the goalies are absolutely horrible. Like I said, even at the highest rating in sliders the goalies are chain link fences and the puck is a BB. I can share the shots on goal for the computer and show video of how easily they score 90% of the time they shoot. This is by far the worst NHL to date and I just bought it yesterday and am about to uninstall it for NHL 19. That's how bad the defense and goalies are. It's a complete mess. Every year EA boasts of all the changes and better goalies and whatnot but do far EA hasn't lived up to their word. I'm getting tired of seeing the computer skate to the net, make a move and score every single time, regardless of my defense. I've been playing NHL games since the days when you made them for Genesis. From the beginning. I've bought each year except for last year and was contemplating this year and went ahead anyways. I regret that decision. I should have heeded the reviews saying how bad the goalies were this time around. Please, fix this mess. This is not hockey, this is not even a sim, it's arcade hockey where the goalies belong in peewee hockey. These goalies are horrible. They stop nothing. I switched it to rookie and still the computer scores goal after ridiculous goal after pathetic goal while my goalie just sits th3re looking like he's taking a dump. It's horrendous.
EA_Aljo
Community Manager
Community ManagerAre you seeing 90% of shots for and against you count as goals? I haven't been experiencing this personally and we're not getting other reports of it. I'd like to find out why this is happening to you.
I'm seeing the computer dance on in and do a couple moves and they beat the goalie every single time. It's like my goalie isn't there. I appreciate that it may not be happening to you, that's usually the case with developers for some reason, but for us, the players, it happens frequently. I've bought games where I experience bugs but the developers say they didn't and never fixed it for we the ones who have experienced the issue. I see it a pot in games these days. Games get the green light but they are put out half finished. Cyberpunk ring any bells? Money was their desire, not a finished game. Same goes with other developers. Sims 4, another EA title, has the same bug that EA refuses to fix. I really wish an EA rep would contact me on that game too. This is the hockey game we are dealing with however. I've loved the NHL series since it began but I just can't play this one. The goals against are not realistic. Not at all. I don't know why the goals against are so easy for the computer but all I know is that the game needs some proper AI adjustment patches immediately. As it stands it's like having a pulled goalie. He's useless in net.
- EA_Aljo
We're not getting many reports about this. If you're letting AI players skate around until they get good scoring chances, they're probably going to score on you. If you can get some video showing the problem, that will help. Are you playing manual defense or do you control one player and sit in the middle while letting your AI teammates defend for you? What difficulty level are you playing on?
I had it on semi pro but the computer was scoring cheap goals, you know, like crashing into the goalie and the puck trickles in. One of the bugs that has never been fixed in years. Even one where the goalie gets pulled out of the way when he's crashed into and another computer player gets the puck and puts it in the net easily. I switched it to the easiest setting but there is no challenge as even my goals go in easily on this level. The whole difficulty scaling is so unrealistic and has been for years. Easy is too easy, semi pro is harder, much harder, and pro is forget about ever scoring at all and getting scored on easily.
And the same issue where the computer is way faster than any of my players, even when I'm controlling the guy close to him. It's almost as if the AI knows I'm going to switch to that character. As soon as I switch they get rid of the puck. And so forth. It's not very realistic. I skate with the puck and they just barely touch me and I lose the puck. I skate faster and it's hard to keep up with the computer players. They are way too fast to be realistic. I even had to turn off penalties because in the last few years you poke check and they trip up so easily and a penalty is drawn. The computer does it to you and they draw no penalty. So I made it fair by turning off penalties completely. Only fighting gives me a penalty. Goalies are at 100 but the sliders are useless.
I want to like this game, coming from NHL 19, which I most likely will go back to since I doubt there will be an update for 21, but I just can't get behind it. I end up turning it off when the computer starts getting goal after goal in a matter of seconds. Seconds apart from each other. My AI teammates are a joke. They are never in place to receive passes, they don't cover me, they are always behind the play, they are hardly ever open. Like I said, I've played previous installments and never had this many issues. I don't know what else to do. I even lower the difficulty in the AI, AI learning, etc, but the computer disregards it completely.
It’s actually more like 50%
