I just want this game for PC!!! FIFA has been on PC and doing great so WHY can't NHL release it on PC!?
NHL 2009 was the latest game they made for PC!! 10 YEARS!!! IN 10 YEARS alot of things has evolved SO WHY DON'T YOU!? WHY DON'T YOU SEE WHAT PEOPLE WANT!?
The latest NHL game i played was NHL 2016 on PS4 before i sold it and switched to PC,been waiting to play since then.
I am NOT buying a console for just playing ONE game (even tho its my favorite game franchise since i picked up NHL 99 on N64 in my childhood)
Don't EA sports realize PC gaming is huge and is gonna continue that way!? Or they simply do not care about all the fans of the NHL franchise!? I've been waiting for years and i'm so disappointed meanwhile i get to see all the Football fans on PC happy because they are getting their FIFA....
EA Sports why you can't release it on PC and stop ignoring your PC gamers!
I know i might sound angry but thats because i care and love this game franchise!
THANKS AND SHOUTOUT TO THE NHL FANS ON PC!
If you Google vgchartz and look at sales numbers for nhl on the consoles vs nhl on the pc (specifically at years that had both) you will find that the PC sales base is less than 1% of the console sales base. Sadly, there are simply not enough of ya'll.
#1 - Vastly Improved Servers. Yes, that means 1v1 games as well. Just because it's peer-to-peer doesn't mean there isn't netcode involved. I've never played a peer-to-peer game with such inconsistent connections. I have open NAT, directly hardwired to modem, and top of the line internet. I have BEAUTIFUL connections to all games I play but this one. And if the new baseball game "Super Mega Baseball 2" (which is a GREATTTTTT game by the way!!!) has dedicated servers for 1v1 games (It's a small company), why can't EA NHL???
#2- TPS needs to be severely revamped or trashed all together. You've made it painfully obvious that you want your skill gap to be in the skating (bad decision), so if thats the case, at least make the skating engine very polished. It's old, stale, and still not up to par after 5 years now. Let's move on from it. It just didn't work out.
#3 - Physics: Pucks going through goalie pads, sticks going through the boards, players bubbling and sliding around each other like they are magnets of the same polarity.. its a mess. And why are there bubbles around each net?
#4: Weird miscellaneous things: Why is it that when I hold down the button for quite a while for a long dump down the ice on the penalty kill, my player sends a low line drive DIRECTLY to opposing defenseman at around center ice, who promptly catches it and sets it down? Why does the player I just smashed with the puck get up and retrieve the puck and keep going like nothing happened? Why can the opposing goalie pass it out through a crowd of people, and it always makes it through, resulting in a 2 on 1 or worse? So many weird things that make the game so.... weird, unrealistic, and horribly not fun.
“If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have the key to the universe.” - Nikola Tesla
#1 - Vastly Improved Servers. Yes, that means 1v1 games as well. Just because it's peer-to-peer doesn't mean there isn't netcode involved. I've never played a peer-to-peer game with such inconsistent connections. I have open NAT, directly hardwired to modem, and top of the line internet. I have BEAUTIFUL connections to all games I play but this one. And if the new baseball game "Super Mega Baseball 2" (which is a GREATTTTTT game by the way!!!) has dedicated servers for 1v1 games (It's a small company), why can't EA NHL???
#2- TPS needs to be severely revamped or trashed all together. You've made it painfully obvious that you want your skill gap to be in the skating (bad decision), so if thats the case, at least make the skating engine very polished. It's old, stale, and still not up to par after 5 years now. Let's move on from it. It just didn't work out.
#3 - Physics: Pucks going through goalie pads, sticks going through the boards, players bubbling and sliding around each other like they are magnets of the same polarity.. its a mess. And why are there bubbles around each net?
#4: Weird miscellaneous things: Why is it that when I hold down the button for quite a while for a long dump down the ice on the penalty kill, my player sends a low line drive DIRECTLY to opposing defenseman at around center ice, who promptly catches it and sets it down? Why does the player I just smashed with the puck get up and retrieve the puck and keep going like nothing happened? Why can the opposing goalie pass it out through a crowd of people, and it always makes it through, resulting in a 2 on 1 or worse? So many weird things that make the game so.... weird, unrealistic, and horribly not fun.
If I could "agree" and "like" this together I would. Spot on
they need to bring back the costomization of attribute in EASHL but for saving people to complain they need to fix a amount of point you can distribute in every skill, so yes every player will have 75 ov but the point will be placed in different skills, doesnt need to pay for anything or being able to have player at 80 ov no im just saying everyone could put there points where they want and the same amount for everyone.... Be able to do that will increase the numbers of player by a lot, just like it was before back in nhl 14, witch still the best nhl ever made
they need to bring back the costomization of attribute in EASHL but for saving people to complain they need to fix a amount of point you can distribute in every skill, so yes every player will have 75 ov but the point will be placed in different skills, doesnt need to pay for anything or being able to have player at 80 ov no im just saying everyone could put there points where they want and the same amount for everyone.... Be able to do that will increase the numbers of player by a lot, just like it was before back in nhl 14, witch still the best nhl ever made
Keep seeing this get suggested, but EA really can't handle balancing something so customizable. Even in FIFA where their budget is much higher, you still have 5'6" speedsters winning Jump Ball battles vs 6'4" stationary monsters.
EA games are all about speed speed and more speed. We have 4 stat categories for your Shooting Ability, and none of them matter when all goals are scored by shooting AROUND the goalie, and not by Beating the goalie with your shot stats.
they need to bring back the costomization of attribute in EASHL but for saving people to complain they need to fix a amount of point you can distribute in every skill, so yes every player will have 75 ov but the point will be placed in different skills, doesnt need to pay for anything or being able to have player at 80 ov no im just saying everyone could put there points where they want and the same amount for everyone.... Be able to do that will increase the numbers of player by a lot, just like it was before back in nhl 14, witch still the best nhl ever made
As much as I agree with this, EA will always try to figure out a way to have boosts or get you to pay for that extra edge.
This ice tilt thing gotta stop. Im super honest and agree with most of the community on other issues, but Ice tilt an predetermined games ? Please. I don't believe the staff has the capacity to incorporate such a intricate mechanic. Heck sorry to say, but they can't even make simple mechanics functional let alone complex ones.
Seems like a lot of people make excuses for taking Ls. Just take it.
I don't think that it's ice tilt. I just think that there are so many issues with this game, so many frustrations, that it makes it seem like the game is purposely trying to **** over.
My personal opinion is that the awful AI and the animation engine are the biggest factor in making this game frustrating beyond belief. On the one hand, the AI continuously sampling a human opponent's inputs and essentially "cheating". On the other hand, having your inputs be taken over by the game because it decided to make you skate into the puck to receive it, meanwhile locking you into that animation without the possibility of canceling out and moving in the direction you WANT to move in.
Both those things make it hard for people to not call out "momentum" or "ice tilt"...
Agreed and add on the random number generator that I am guessing comes into effect when deciding any action outcome in NHL. A few things that I think the random number generator helping decide outcomes of single actions can make it seem like ice tilt are:
- Shots from point (no screen or redirect) going in? That should not happen as often as it does. You know what they say, if they can see it they will likely save it.
- shots banking in off a defenceman that is in great position or performing a good defensive play. Not a shot redirecting. I mean more of a pass being poked into the net, or going off a skate of someone covering the front of the net. Again this happens in real life but how often??
- Poke checks where the player losing the puck gains it back 3-4 times in a row. This rarely happens once a poke check hits puck. It takes the player losing the puck that bit of time to realize its gone, then track the puck then get into a puck battle. Do this multiple times in a row and the likely-hood of regaining control should be null. Random number generator probably has an effect (with defensive/offensive awareness and other attributes) on which player will pick it up first.
I could go on but if these scenarios happen to a team a few times a game all night it feels as though ice tilt is real. I for one have been on both sides of it. Being outplayed badly but getting every bounce and lucky goal and other games dominating and we lose on a turn around wrist shot from the point. Not ice tilt but bad animations, bad input lag, bizarre AI and the random number generator are IMO why people have been talking about ice tilt for years. Put of all of these I would say the input lag is the worst. When you have lag it feels like the other team is 2 steps ahead of you. Our club played a team back to back last week, for some reason first game was on west coast (20-25 ms) and the second game was on east coast (40-45ms). Guess who won each game and quite easily??
they need to bring back the costomization of attribute in EASHL but for saving people to complain they need to fix a amount of point you can distribute in every skill, so yes every player will have 75 ov but the point will be placed in different skills, doesnt need to pay for anything or being able to have player at 80 ov no im just saying everyone could put there points where they want and the same amount for everyone.... Be able to do that will increase the numbers of player by a lot, just like it was before back in nhl 14, witch still the best nhl ever made
As much as I agree with this, EA will always try to figure out a way to have boosts or get you to pay for that extra edge.
They havent for 3 years. If it was important itd be back in eashl by now.
We need to change a lot to bring the current NHL closer to a real NHL game. It serves to make the skating of the players more varied, more fluid and articulate. On average, players' bodies must be made slimmer, lower and lower. The ways of making goals must be made more varied, decreasing the average speed of the game and making the deviations realistic and much more present. More types of interventions must be added to the goalkeepers. It's all too mechanical. On this point, copying from FIFA or PES would not be a bad idea. This is only the beginning. Sorry for the English .. but I'm an Italian fan of the game.
We need to change a lot to bring the current NHL closer to a real NHL game. It serves to make the skating of the players more varied, more fluid and articulate. On average, players' bodies must be made slimmer, lower and lower. The ways of making goals must be made more varied, decreasing the average speed of the game and making the deviations realistic and much more present. More types of interventions must be added to the goalkeepers. It's all too mechanical. On this point, copying from FIFA or PES would not be a bad idea. This is only the beginning. Sorry for the English .. but I'm an Italian fan of the game.
We need to change a lot to bring the current NHL closer to a real NHL game. It serves to make the skating of the players more varied, more fluid and articulate. On average, players' bodies must be made slimmer, lower and lower. The ways of making goals must be made more varied, decreasing the average speed of the game and making the deviations realistic and much more present. More types of interventions must be added to the goalkeepers. It's all too mechanical. On this point, copying from FIFA or PES would not be a bad idea. This is only the beginning. Sorry for the English .. but I'm an Italian fan of the game.
good points and I'm a fan of Italian music - like Giovanni Ferrario
For this you should adjust the acceleration of the players with special buttons like the triggers of the pad
Id love a button/trigger for Stopping, so that LS can be used to control the facing of your player during the stop, and holding the Stop Button while stationary allowing you to rotate your player's facing with LS.
thank you guys. Another important thing are the images of ice, unrealistic, too glossy. The ice is more opaque, more dense, when you look at it. With motion capture, you would have to add different ways to skate, even with non-moving players. Sometimes without puck the players control the actions. now the players are never still seem insects: . First intention passages even when stopped and more. In fact, according to me, it is necessary to review many things. I upload a photo, for example, of what I say. The game is sometimes static and then start again in speed in others, it depends. For this you should adjust the acceleration of the players with special buttons like the triggers of the pad
First off, I want to remind everyone that we are often on these boards and have a pulse on all of the conversations going on even if we aren't posting responses. So with that, I realize there are many other questions and topics that I could jump in and respond to but this one in particular is of interest to me as it is more around design and theory which is one of the main aspects of my role on the team.
As with every aspect of our game, when looking at skating, we look at authenticity in our pursuit to recreate what we see in the real world of hockey and match that with how it is going to control/respond for our players so that the twitch skill aspect of the game is still very much a big part of the experience.
I have seen discussions around how skating shouldn't be a big skill differentiator and I understand some of the sentiment in that but I don't fully agree. The choice to commit and pivot is a huge part of the game of hockey and the difference in a lot of cases in a scoring chance or not or how much time a space is given up. Pivots relate directly to facing so although you may say that requesting to face the puck or not should be a simple request and should have consistency, that can be completely true and is intended in our design but there is still a skill gap in what that request means when crossing over with the authentic physical side of what is possible on skates, especially in it's relation to the speed you are moving.
There are many things you can technically do on ice but we prioritize what we most commonly see in the world of hockey as we consider keeping the input side as intuitive as possible.
Although players can do the iron cross on ice, it isn't common to use many of those techniques in long succession even though you may strafe at moments in time within a game. The majority of time in a game of hockey, players are either going hard or gliding (and the management between those states) and because the game happens at such high speeds, there become limits as to what you can do on ice. You can skate at 26mph and pivot to skate backwards on that same path but you can't at that speed start crossing over laterally to your facing direction and travel in the same line that you could skate forwards or backwards in.
I have posted this clip a few times before, but I think it is very good example to understand the theory of vision control when it comes to physically realistic skating vs what was possible in videogames in the past that didn't necessarily reflect accountability over speed when strafing as that is what changes the concept of being able to face the puck 100 percent vs keeping the puck in your front 180 degrees (which again relates back to the choices to pivot or not). That is also what makes positioning and gap control a skill on top of that.
Watch a bunch of them and notice how there are many times where the only thing directly facing the puck from the defender is his head and there are many times where his lower body/skates facing is up to 90 degrees/perpendicular from the line to the puck due to the physical angle they are skating.
People often post clips showing mohawks, strafes and lateral crossovers to show what is possible on an ice surface with skates but we have to consider the fact that none of these players in any of these situations are doing those things because they aren't the most efficient, nor in a lot of cases could you keep the same momentum or do them at anywhere near the speeds required to match the offensive players for long periods of time.
If you have auto backskate off, you are in full control of when you are in vision control or not but due to the vision control logic, which considers the physical limitations of skating, you will still pivot as you cross over that point where the puck goes from your front to back 180 degrees.
And to better explain that, think of your player facing forward on a lateral line that extends through both of their feet. The front 180 degrees is an arc from one side to the other curving around the front of the player and the Back 180 degrees is the opposite. So if you have vision control held and you skate towards the puck, you will be skating forwards but if you skate away from the puck, you will skate backwards. As you move lateral left and right and/or turn, it starts to depend on the puck position if you would need to skate forwards or backwards to keep the puck in your Front 180 degrees.
On top of that, since you need to manage your gap, you may choose to skate forwards towards where you are going to get a good gap before pressing vision control and facing up which is where the skill to skating should be a big part of the game as well in my opinion. The 'auto backskate' logic tries to get this right a high percentage of the time and essentially handles the logic for when you should most often be manually pressing vision control. So if you are skating back on the backcheck, your player won't turn to face until you have a good enough gap, which is similar to what we would expect to see someone that understands defensive theory to do manually. That auto logic also has extra conditions that take into account how close you are to your defending net as there are some cases where it is too late to pivot for example. That logic is less important to get further into here as I am sure most of you play with 'auto backskate' off for more manual control, which is what we expect from our more advanced players.
Overall, that covers the defensive side of vision control. The main difference on offense away from the puck is that your vision control target changes from what would make sense on defense to a facing angle that is appropriate to square up for one timers. To do this it considers where you are in relation to both the puck and the net.
A couple other things you will see... When you are in defensive skill stick, you will see your upper body is turned to face the puck as best as it physically can based on your lower half/skates facing to give you the best chance to stay square in terms of defending the puck. This allows you to move your stick to cover the 180 degrees from your current position to the pucks position. If the puck was beyond, that, your skater would then have to pivot to get the puck back in that front 180 and again, your upper body can face the puck directly, even if your skates can't based on where you are asking to move.
We have tried to do some things with Precision skating when it comes to shorter distances so that you can strafe at lower speeds and we can also take an extra condition/input such as winding up for a manual one timer as a time that you do want to skate slower and strafe rather than skate forwards or backwards. So you will see more of those strafe movements in those scenarios and aside from feedback that everything could be better, that at least explains the theory when trying to get all those things working with each other without too many modifiers and favoring what you would want to do most often during a game.
agree that you need to capture the most common movements and situations in the game of hockey but what makes this sport unique is not only the descent with the disc one on one but also all those situations that do not happen in speed skating but moving the puck with intelligence and technique. otherwise it's just a matter of running from one network to another. what a great hockey game would do would be how you get to finalize the net, the pages, and so on. Now it's all very mechanical. you go from one network to another with the usual steps.
We need to change a lot to bring the current NHL closer to a real NHL game. It serves to make the skating of the players more varied, more fluid and articulate. On average, players' bodies must be made slimmer, lower and lower. The ways of making goals must be made more varied, decreasing the average speed of the game and making the deviations realistic and much more present. More types of interventions must be added to the goalkeepers. It's all too mechanical. On this point, copying from FIFA or PES would not be a bad idea. This is only the beginning. Sorry for the English .. but I'm an Italian fan of the game.
OK tell us how you got into Hockey and the NHL game. Did you follow the Italian team that won the Austrian League?
I just want more options on create a team and create a player. I want to be able to design a jersey from scratch, like in NBA 2K and import it to the game. With create a player, I want to have options to make my own legends, like in MLB the Show. I want to have access to old equipment and more equipment options so I can make my created players and my current active players looks as close to the real thing as possible. I'd like to be able to create old time players and have them not wearing helmets when they play, like they did when they play. I want to have that sort of control. In MLB the Show there are groups of people that spend countless hours updating rosters so that they reflect a particular season in the past, I'd like to be able to do that in NHL 19. The thing is not everyone would want to do this, some people would want to have the most up to date looking rosters available, but some people would like to have an all-time roster where Sidney Crosby could be on the same team as Mario Lemieux or Connor McDavid could be on the same team as Wayne Gretzky. Right now, you don't truly have that option. Sure you can create a player to be Mario Lemieux, but that created player is not going to have the look of Mario Lemieux, nor is he going to have that classic 1980s Cooper Helmet or Koho gloves with the long cuffs, because we've never been given that option. If I had to settle, I guess I would be fine with just being able to create players with no helmets and maybe just the ability to put a CCM Pro Standard III helmet on my created legends I would be happy. To sum up, I just want to be able to customize more and have access to more. Look to MLB the show and NBA 2K for inspiration. More is better. I'd rather have 100 options to sort through than only 7
Here are my speculations and I get the feeling they will be premonitions if you will. NHL 19 will feature more...
Terrible AI
Terrible Puck Pick-ups and Physics
Terrible goals given up by 90 plus rated goalies
Terrible connections online
Terrible menus and button recognition
Terrible passing mechanics
Plenty of pucks magically going through sticks and pads
Players kicking pucks
Hyped features that sound great but end up being underwhelming
A lot of HUT cards - I mean who doesn't love having 25 different Ovechkin cards
And I speculate that before the game even launches there will be...
A lot of "you guys are going to love this" statements.
A beta that plays much better than the game we get after the day 1 patch
My biggest gripe is the skating. I think that development on this was held back by the game's engine, hence the focus on stickhandling options that you never see in real-life versus players moving as fluidly and fast as a Connor McDavid. Deking and skating are hopefully more fluid, as-in being able to maintain speed while deking and turning/weaving. The game's skating makes play too north-south in an era of hockey where edgework and agility are everything. If I'm using Mitch Marner, Crosby, or Kane, I want to be able to weave like they do. Likewise, Ovechkin's legs never stop moving. Gaining speed through the neutral zone is a mix of space and crossovers, you should be able to turn while both maintaining and gaining speed. This goes into the player differentiation thing in the survey. This was tried back on PS2, but it never made a difference. Player size and weight should factor into skating and maneuverability, but we'll see. Right now, a nice outside-edge stop to create distance from defenders would be a massive upgrade in its own right, but a skating overhaul would probably work hand-in-hand with player differentiation.
As for presentation, I liked the ideas put forth in the survey. You should feel more connected. More in-game stats like league standings, scores from other games, and a better milestone tracking feature that lets you know how close a player is somewhere in the menus of "Be A Pro" or "GM Mode" (parentheses because who knows what they'll be called). There is a measure of stuff already in there, like first games, first goals, 1000th game, but if you score 10 points in a game... there should be a way to make note of it in-game and why not include NHL records to see how well you can do comparatively? That sort of stuff brings me into the experience more. Last year, they included a lot of new cut-scenes. Small add, but it brings more presentation to the game. More interactive playoff crowds, too. Important games, rivalry games. Crowds should be more engaged period. If EA is working on this, I say more power to them. It would be cool, though as just a dream, not a wish list thing, if you could choose between HNIC or NBC commentators. *sigh*
I like the idea of a story mode, too. American kid who goes to play juniors in Canada? Hilarious nod to Youngblood. Maybe you get to pick if you're a Yank, a Canadian kid from a big city or the country, or an import from European juniors.
Speaking of the European leagues, you should be able to sign players in-season from those leagues. Incorporate them more into the game.
As for equipment, I don't know if there's anything else to add these days besides maybe customizing skate holders (i.e. TUUKs on non-Bauer skates) and blade colors (a lot of players use black blades). I doubt that the companies would allow this. Oh, and how's about a legitimate IIHF license?! The World Cup was a cool addition. Bring it back? Create a Tournament, Winter Classic venues,
Replies
If you Google vgchartz and look at sales numbers for nhl on the consoles vs nhl on the pc (specifically at years that had both) you will find that the PC sales base is less than 1% of the console sales base. Sadly, there are simply not enough of ya'll.
- New scoreboard
- Instead of Mike Emrick, each home team have their own announcer
#2- TPS needs to be severely revamped or trashed all together. You've made it painfully obvious that you want your skill gap to be in the skating (bad decision), so if thats the case, at least make the skating engine very polished. It's old, stale, and still not up to par after 5 years now. Let's move on from it. It just didn't work out.
#3 - Physics: Pucks going through goalie pads, sticks going through the boards, players bubbling and sliding around each other like they are magnets of the same polarity.. its a mess. And why are there bubbles around each net?
#4: Weird miscellaneous things: Why is it that when I hold down the button for quite a while for a long dump down the ice on the penalty kill, my player sends a low line drive DIRECTLY to opposing defenseman at around center ice, who promptly catches it and sets it down? Why does the player I just smashed with the puck get up and retrieve the puck and keep going like nothing happened? Why can the opposing goalie pass it out through a crowd of people, and it always makes it through, resulting in a 2 on 1 or worse? So many weird things that make the game so.... weird, unrealistic, and horribly not fun.
If I could "agree" and "like" this together I would. Spot on
Keep seeing this get suggested, but EA really can't handle balancing something so customizable. Even in FIFA where their budget is much higher, you still have 5'6" speedsters winning Jump Ball battles vs 6'4" stationary monsters.
EA games are all about speed speed and more speed. We have 4 stat categories for your Shooting Ability, and none of them matter when all goals are scored by shooting AROUND the goalie, and not by Beating the goalie with your shot stats.
As much as I agree with this, EA will always try to figure out a way to have boosts or get you to pay for that extra edge.
Agreed and add on the random number generator that I am guessing comes into effect when deciding any action outcome in NHL. A few things that I think the random number generator helping decide outcomes of single actions can make it seem like ice tilt are:
- Shots from point (no screen or redirect) going in? That should not happen as often as it does. You know what they say, if they can see it they will likely save it.
- shots banking in off a defenceman that is in great position or performing a good defensive play. Not a shot redirecting. I mean more of a pass being poked into the net, or going off a skate of someone covering the front of the net. Again this happens in real life but how often??
- Poke checks where the player losing the puck gains it back 3-4 times in a row. This rarely happens once a poke check hits puck. It takes the player losing the puck that bit of time to realize its gone, then track the puck then get into a puck battle. Do this multiple times in a row and the likely-hood of regaining control should be null. Random number generator probably has an effect (with defensive/offensive awareness and other attributes) on which player will pick it up first.
I could go on but if these scenarios happen to a team a few times a game all night it feels as though ice tilt is real. I for one have been on both sides of it. Being outplayed badly but getting every bounce and lucky goal and other games dominating and we lose on a turn around wrist shot from the point. Not ice tilt but bad animations, bad input lag, bizarre AI and the random number generator are IMO why people have been talking about ice tilt for years. Put of all of these I would say the input lag is the worst. When you have lag it feels like the other team is 2 steps ahead of you. Our club played a team back to back last week, for some reason first game was on west coast (20-25 ms) and the second game was on east coast (40-45ms). Guess who won each game and quite easily??
They havent for 3 years. If it was important itd be back in eashl by now.
Great post, agreed.
Greetings to sunny Italy
good points and I'm a fan of Italian music - like Giovanni Ferrario
Saluti
agree that you need to capture the most common movements and situations in the game of hockey but what makes this sport unique is not only the descent with the disc one on one but also all those situations that do not happen in speed skating but moving the puck with intelligence and technique. otherwise it's just a matter of running from one network to another. what a great hockey game would do would be how you get to finalize the net, the pages, and so on. Now it's all very mechanical. you go from one network to another with the usual steps.
OK tell us how you got into Hockey and the NHL game. Did you follow the Italian team that won the Austrian League?
Terrible AI
Terrible Puck Pick-ups and Physics
Terrible goals given up by 90 plus rated goalies
Terrible connections online
Terrible menus and button recognition
Terrible passing mechanics
Plenty of pucks magically going through sticks and pads
Players kicking pucks
Hyped features that sound great but end up being underwhelming
A lot of HUT cards - I mean who doesn't love having 25 different Ovechkin cards
And I speculate that before the game even launches there will be...
A lot of "you guys are going to love this" statements.
A beta that plays much better than the game we get after the day 1 patch
Forgive me if I've missed anything.
Less of this, more core game mechanics improvements.
As for presentation, I liked the ideas put forth in the survey. You should feel more connected. More in-game stats like league standings, scores from other games, and a better milestone tracking feature that lets you know how close a player is somewhere in the menus of "Be A Pro" or "GM Mode" (parentheses because who knows what they'll be called). There is a measure of stuff already in there, like first games, first goals, 1000th game, but if you score 10 points in a game... there should be a way to make note of it in-game and why not include NHL records to see how well you can do comparatively? That sort of stuff brings me into the experience more. Last year, they included a lot of new cut-scenes. Small add, but it brings more presentation to the game. More interactive playoff crowds, too. Important games, rivalry games. Crowds should be more engaged period. If EA is working on this, I say more power to them. It would be cool, though as just a dream, not a wish list thing, if you could choose between HNIC or NBC commentators. *sigh*
I like the idea of a story mode, too. American kid who goes to play juniors in Canada? Hilarious nod to Youngblood. Maybe you get to pick if you're a Yank, a Canadian kid from a big city or the country, or an import from European juniors.
Speaking of the European leagues, you should be able to sign players in-season from those leagues. Incorporate them more into the game.
As for equipment, I don't know if there's anything else to add these days besides maybe customizing skate holders (i.e. TUUKs on non-Bauer skates) and blade colors (a lot of players use black blades). I doubt that the companies would allow this. Oh, and how's about a legitimate IIHF license?! The World Cup was a cool addition. Bring it back? Create a Tournament, Winter Classic venues,