NHL 21 complete mess!

@DyreLogan 

19 and 21 have vastly different mechanics so while difficulty might remain the same, your results will differ using the same playstyle

I’ve noticed a few differences like no more Mike Emrick, and Ray Ferraro is no longer repeating the same thing over and over and over, but I haven’t noticed much else about the skating, shooting, passing or goaltending. It seems like a copy/paste with a few added celebrations and cutscenes. I don’t think one can say that the play style is vastly different than that of a few years ago. If you played both games side by side with the sound off and showing one skater skating from one side of the ice to the other, you couldn’t much tell the difference unless you knew the platform well. What I have been trying is Be A Pro and I’ve been liking just that aspect of the game because now I can focus on just one aspect, the person I’m controlling. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose because all they are looking at is how my player is doing. It’s gotten a little more in-depth, like MLB The show, and I like that they added the extra elements. Wish there were more text options to choose from than the same responses you choose from in every dialogue (at this point I’d like to turn those off because they are repetitive and redundant) but I usually just choose the same responses which yields the same answers regardless.

Anyways, I get it. NHL 19 on semi-pro - goalies were better and saved a lot more goals. NHL 21 on semi-pro  - new mechanics means that goalies are much more terrible and save less goals than in previous offerings. I think that is what the other person was trying to say. Wouldn’t that be a step backwards though? Shouldn’t the game improve and not regress? New announcer is a nice improvement. I liked Emrick, but it’s nice to change every few years or so. And it’s nice not hearing Ray Ferraro repeating the same stuff over and over, although I haven’t been playing much and when I do it’s mostly Be A Pro as I enjoy that a lot better than franchise or any other part of the game. I don’t like to play online so I’ll never do that. I kind of like 3’s so I play that sometimes. 

@DyreLogan 

If you can get some video of your issues, that will really help understand what you're reporting. The AI players are only faster under certain conditions. Fatigue being the main one. They are very good about managing their energy while most humans overuse hustle. The carrier has a small penalty to speed that is negated by hustling. You also lose speed when deking and turning.