With FIFA 22 receiving cross-platform play, could it be possible that the NHL series could be receiving it in the new game? Also, will there be a PC version released that could possibly be included in the cross play?
Community ManagerHi there, @DontClipThat
At this time, we don't have any news about cross-platform play and a PC version. If we do, there should be an announcement on our official channels as well as these forums. Thanks!
In your personal opinion, what do you think EA NHL should do to help the small-ish population get into games quicker and more often?
Community ManagerI would love to see cross-play happen. That would really help. Obviously, it's not ideal having the community split up on 4 consoles. Since the game has released, there most likely are more on the newer consoles now so that should help with those populations.
Community ManagerCross-gen at a minimum, but cross-console would be great as well.
I'm fine with the current lobby system. The previous version would be nice to have, but I hated the ability for them to easily be trolled. If I want to set up a private match, that's pretty easy to do already.
Community ManagerCross-play was added to FIFA 22 recently. It's a public test currently, but I don't have any other information on this for FIFA or NHL. We all want it to happen so hopefully, that's the case.
What kind of lobby system would you create that couldn't be trolled? I think I wouldn't mind password-protected lobbies, but that would be pretty similar to what we have now. Personally, I don't see the additional benefits of them, but I know quite a few people want them back. It would be good to have that option.
@EA_Aljo
Fingers crossed on NHL cross-play.
Password protected lobbies are nice of course, but if you want a full game you'd need 11 friends and have them all be online at the same time. That's why I liked the public lobbies, anyone could jump in.
So the old lobbies has a 12 player cap, that allowed 1 troll to sit in the middle if they wished to be a * and not ready-up. The game could still launch 6v5 but often it would kill the lobby. To get around this simply take away the room cap so more than 12 can enter, someone would take the open spot and the troll would still be in the center while the full game launches.
There may be some occasions where you really wanted to play forward but all the spots are taken so you're forced to go D or go look for another room. I play all positions so this never bothered me, some players thought different.
Sometimes though you jump in as a goalie, no other goalie comes on the other team so you quickly jump out of net and grab an open D or F spot to salvage the game. So there are pros and c0ns to both, but we should have them both, more options are always better.
Community ManagerThe current system has a lobby anyone can jump into. If you find people you'd like to keep playing with, you can obviously join up. Keeping track of good players may give you enough to run private matches. I just remember those lobbies being largely full of the same kind of people we see in drop-ins today.
I get what you're saying about positions, but you can also change your position in the lobby currently. I really didn't like the race to position that occurred with the old lobby system. It could sometimes take a while to get the position you want. Most people aren't comfortable playing any so you had multiple people competing for the same spot. Which, sometimes would lead to someone taking a D position and then playing as the 4th forward. Those were really frustrating games.
Both systems have their pros and cons. I'm not saying what we have now is the best it can ever be. I'm just not confident that the old lobby system is going to resolve issues with finding better teammates for drop-ins.
@EA_Aljo
I get what you're saying about positions, but you can also change your position in the lobby currently.
Once matchmaker throws you in a room you can't change positions. You choose a position before you start matchmaking and that's what you have to keep.
I'm just not confident that the old lobby system is going to resolve issues with finding better teammates for drop-ins.
I don't think it's going to find you better teammates, but it is going to find you teammates faster, especially when the population is low.
Before they shutdown the NHL15 PS3 servers I was able to get full 6v6 games with less than 100 players online.
Oh and on a side note, I also think matchmaker should only match goalies in pairs. So many times it will throw in 1 goalie and that will kill the room.
