Re: NHL 23 Cross-Platform Play and PC version

@de4c0nfr05t 

Cross-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.

@de4c0nfr05t 

The 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.

@de4c0nfr05t 

Sorry about that. You're right about changing positions.

While you might get teammates faster, are you including having to back out numerous times when someone trolls? It might not be like that with less than 100 people playing since most everyone would be pretty hardcore and just looking to play a good game, but it often took me 10 - 15 minutes to get a game started due to people backing out. 

That's a good idea about goalies. A lot of people don't want to play against an AI goalie when your team has a human one. 

@de4c0nfr05t 

Personally, I wouldn't like random joining/unjoining of games. I think that would lead to even more trolling. Unless there were some firm rules in place to not let repeatedly leave/join games. I wouldn't mind having a way for someone that gets disconnected, be able to rejoin the same game in progress though. However, I wouldn't want to see this used in leu of a pause or if they just needed to step away for a few minutes. I think the biggest hurdle is making sure this doesn't cause a desync.

@EA_Aljo

I think it could be done right. I would have an option to opt out if you don't want to join ongoing games(on by default).

I would limit it to the 1st period, after 1st intermission no one new can join via matchmaker(invite only).

I would allow you to invite a friend to replace a CPU player at any point in the game(drop-in only).

Re-joining dropped games would not require an invite, it should just prompt you if you want to re-join game upon re-entering WOC(drop-in and club).

Yes I agree there should be rules in place to prevent repeatedly leaving/joining the same game.

I don't have high hopes for this haha just spit-balling ideas, but I do think they could make it work!

@de4c0nfr05t 

Thanks for all the feedback. I'd be surprised if this were added, but I guess you never know. I'll pass it on to the team.