Make free agents harder to acquire in Franchise mode
Top free agents in the nhl usually have their minds made up on the type of teams they want to play for when heading into free agency. It should be as hard as acquiring coaches where they have set preferences and whatnot for teams they'll join unless you overpay them. This should also be the case in free agency. Lesser talent should be willing to sign to anybody but anybody over the overall of say 82 should be increasingly selective of the types of teams they'll play for.
It's the easiest way to cheese the ai in franchise mode and I think would help make it even more of a challenge to become a contending team.
It'd be best if we could also alter this difficulty, like you can with trading difficulty and whatnot so noobs can enjoy building a stacked team as well.
Just a very small minor thing that I think would make a huge difference for next years' game. Thanks.
It's the easiest way to cheese the ai in franchise mode and I think would help make it even more of a challenge to become a contending team.
It'd be best if we could also alter this difficulty, like you can with trading difficulty and whatnot so noobs can enjoy building a stacked team as well.
Just a very small minor thing that I think would make a huge difference for next years' game. Thanks.
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So on July 1 each neutral (using this term for now as this can be modified) team has a 40% chance to sign a player. For every $ over you go over their asking gets you an exponentially declining minimal % gain say maxing out @5% get up the first 3% will be around 2 mil over so adding a million could put you over an equal team but a better suited team will still get the guy. How do you get to be a better suited team? Well that depends on many things, without any modifiers the gm can use will be the team status, contended/rebuild. Younger/over prime will be more inclined for rebuilds and primes will want to contend. I have ideas to make this system more dynamic like a player with a cup or few might be more ok with a rebuild/mentor roll where a vet without a cup only wants 1. Now the gm can modify their team’s status through an interview, the player will ask what your intention is cup/retool/rebuild, what their spot on the team is top 6/bottom 6/depth. Then if you fail to meet what you said in those meetings you will get negative points (also tied into moral system) or if you keep true or over achieve you will get bonuses. So that neutral team term mentioned at the start gets modified through these type of things.
I have more ideas mixed in there but I think this gets the idea across and would only make it messier. Also interested in more questions a player could ask, like to be core or a piece aka more potential to be traded.
They gave us a pretty good franchise mode this year. Gameplay just needs to improve.
@HoodHoppers
What's your top 5 list for gameplay improvements?
1)AI is number one by farrrrrrrr. Examples of things that need to be improved are defensive positioning, offensive positioning, supporting on the breakouts (too often players move to about fifteen feet away from the boards rather than like five feet away from the boards so you can ring the puck around on the breakout), defensive back checking on forwards is very inconsistent, players getting back onside can be really bad at times (they don't take a direct route to the line or they simply will abruptly stop before the line and force an offside for no reason), goalie threat analysis needs to be implemented (still challenging super far on a 2 on 0), superstar difficulty needs a huge improvement (we should make the players think smarter, not just boost their passing ability and shooting accuracy. Seems cheap even though it still isn't super hard to defend) and the players should show more deking prowess and shooting from different positions where they aren't passing on good scoring opportunities, better postplay for goalies (this has significantly been improved this year I will admit, would nice to see another jump next year), better/more realistic positioning on pk and powerplay structures (penalty killers shouldn't be so aggressive, they should stick to a structure more of playing a collapse/shot blocking formation), sometimes forwards will bail out on a 2 on 1 or a 3 on 1 turning it into a 1 on 1, etc.
I'll try to post videos if I get time.
2)more lifelike ai. One thing that has always irked me in the nhl series is how it feels as if I'm playing the Ai. They play drastically different from how a human would play and they also play drastically different from how nhl players play. One real big shining point in this, is shot contesting and general defense of the ai. They should 7 times out of 10 be extending their stick out for a poke check when there's a scoring opportunity, unless they're going to trip or they're generally in a bad position to do so. Ai defense allow too many shots on net. I've tuned the aggression to over 90 so they don't do this but I shouldn't have to if I'm playing on superstar. The ai should be making left and right dekes to go around players, to fool you into believing they're cutting in, extending the stick out to shoot instead of all of their shots being a snap shot, etc.
3)better puck and stick on stick physics. The puck should be more loose. You guys are trending in this direction it just needs to keep going this way. You guys improved shot physics a lot which obviously applies to puck physics but with the shot physics alone one thing I encourage more is lower shot speed while skating backwards (unless on a one-time clapper). Looks unrealistic when you receive a puck on the forehand while backing away from the net and releasing a powerful shot while sti backskating (no forward transition of momentum). Poke checks that connect with stick only don't impact the puck enough. It should jostle the puck loose more often. I'm also not sure how easily this would be implemented but shot physics where sticks travel through the body or other sticks would be cool too. If you're forcing a shot through a defender that's in the way of your follow through, the puck should have its momentum altered or the puck shoots to the corner or whatnot and the stick shouldn't travel through the body. I dunno how easily this can be implemented. Also pucks getting shot off of legs should have more momentum coming off of them. It's rare that a puck dies when it hits a shin pad, most of the times it gets pushed several feet away. Puck friction with the ice is usually too low. The puck should slow down a bit on the ice about 10-20%.
4)a few more tuners added to the already great list of tuners you've given us. I made a thread a couple days ago about this. Hopefully more people will add their input to that list as well.
5)not gameplay but obviously the stats need fixing during in game presentation. There should also be a lot more presentation/neat facts that are brought up in games. There isn't enough variety in between the whistles. There are so many facts thrown up by commentary teams during real life games and it should be emulated here as well. Things like players on scoring streaks, players on goal streams, players challenging records, players whose fans think they aren't getting enough ice time or deployment from coaches, rookie information (are they taking the league by storm? Are they still in search for their first point? First goal? Are they struggling to stay in the lineup? Are top 5 picks not living up to potential?), players getting called up after a stint in the AHL, players coming back from injury, players playing injured, players on cold streaks, teams on cold/hot streaks, penalty kill percentages, powerplay percentages (could be for the whole season or the last ten games), stats at home, stats at away games, are players in contention for certain trophies, etc. You don't need fancy layouts or scoreboards or cool replays to make for amazing presentation, you need to repeat the ambience of real games and in a lot of real games there is filler during whistles. They have things like replays (I wouldn't expect this in a video game) of other games, they have TSN turning points (this I do expect), they have stats, they have cool tidbits of players. They mention things like where their hometowns are, where they got traded from, who drafted them, if they've won cups, if they've won individual titles such as the calder or conn Smythe, how many goals they've scored in the year, in the last ten games, whether they've been promoted or demoted lines, if they're filling in for an injury, etc. Fifa 12 or 13 had the best sports recreation of any sports title I've played. It felt like I was playing soccer because the commentary was just so good and it didn't seem repetitive to me. That's the challenge, is having so many small details in there that even after hours upon hours you still go, "This seems new to me".
The amount of fans should impact the amount of noise in the game. Fans should have audible "Oh's" when your player misses the net, desperation saves should have audible gasps or cheers from fans whether you're home or away, fans yelling "shoot" at the end of periods with ten seconds left, fans booing poor powerplays, fans audibly more upset during losing streaks, elated during win streaks. Introduce the hockey code in this game. One thing that separates hockey from other sports is all of the unwritten rules in the game. It makes the sport what it is. I try think big hits should be severely limited in this game and a whole bunch of smaller separating man from puck hits should be increased. Devastating hits are rare in today's game. You're lucky if you see 2 or 3 in one game. And usually what happens? The little things. And it's those little details that will ultimately make your game repayable. Already in the game we have the instance of where if a guy gets laid out, there's an instigation of a fight. Now this isn't a bad idea, but it's poorly implemented. Instead of just having one guy target the hitter, both teams should get activated. If you take a run at a star player, your night is gonna change and it should reflect this in the game. Post whistle face washes should be increased on that player. They should add in animations of slashes, minor Cross-checks, etc. There should be cut scenes of players chirping at each other in front of the goalie. There should be cut scenes of players chirping each other from the bench during whistles. Cut scenes of coaches getting angry at a player for taking multiple undisciplined penalties. A coach getting angry at refs for loads and loads of calls. Games with lots of hitting should have faceoff antics between the wingers. Games without lots of hitting should show sportsmanship where on things like goalie covers the players simply skate away talking to each other jovially. All of these little things you see dozens of time during a game but they aren't expressed in this game and it'd really add a whole new level of drama to the game. I truly believe there should be like 20 new cut scene type scenarios for in between whistles added each year. Small things. A player gets robbed while down a goal? During the next whistle they show him shaking his head on the bench. Player sustains a further injury while playing injured? Maybe he slams his stick over the edge of the bench in frustration. Goalie getting shelled? Have him look to the bench and the coach isn't even noticing him. Have the goalies shaking their heads after goals. If a goal goes in off of a goalie, have them lay on the ice a little bit longer. More chirps. More emotion. More fine details.
Also the amount of fans should reflect certain markets. Markets with more bandwagon fanbases like Arizona should have less people in the seats when they're underperforming and more when they're making playoff runs. Meanwhile places like Vancouver are usually full unless the rebuild is taking forever. Teams that have been at the bottom of the standings for years and years should not be always selling out. Sound noise should also be dependent on season ticket sales. The more season ticket buyers, the more reluctant fans are to cheer for good plays.
6)more goalie animations/anticipation. Goalies are definitely improved this year. I've tuned mine to be in a great spot personally, but there's obviously still some animations that need to be added. Post work is still obviously in need of improvement. A lot of times they come off their posts too early too often. There needs to be some more animations on the posts the flow well from sharp angles. For anticipation, shots in tight should have the goalie in butterfly before the shot is even off of the stick. Goalies won't give up the easiest part of the net to score on that easily in real life and usually require a deke to open up things like five hole and the inside of the posts. When way out of position, goalies should desperately throw themselves at saves rather than just kind of going into animations knowing they're not close enough. However, not to the extent it was two years ago where goalies limbs were still miraculously targeting rocket launched pucks top corners. Usually if you're desperate you don't have time to react, so don't make the limbs react or make them react like 10% of their movement from the original animation. I absolutely love the rare occurances in this game where I'm absolutely robbed by a sprawling goaltender because I couldn't elevate the shot from a pass that's a bit in front of my skates too much. It emulates hockey so beautifully and those moments are part of today's game. Hasek revolutionized the game and there should be more examples of this. Where's the animation for throwing your arm on the line and hoping that the player shovels the puck into it? The inside of the blocker saves? Needs to be there. Would also make the shootouts way more fun to deke the goaltenders out of their skates.
Sorry for the lengthy post but I do believe attention to detail is the most important thing in the video game world and the best games have it. These little details I believe would propel you back to the top of the sports gaming world if you implemented them. I think most of these changes can be done in the next two years. I have other ideas that would be more longterm projects but in large I've kept them off this list.
i don't pay a lot of attention to who the coaches want where, as long as its not in the negative...
for example using the leafs, the top line that got highest coach rating was Matthews, Z.****, Kapanen
but I like keeping the real life pairs of Matthews/Nylander and Tavares/Marner together, so I had a top line of Johnsson/Matthews/Nylander and it worked fine
Johnsson had 60pts, Nylander 80, Matthews over 100 including 50 goals
now sometimes I play a franchise mode where I really work with coaches as if its real life and play them where they want, but theres no real negative factor to not doing it either
[Socair - edited swear filter]
Exactly. It's a battle between getting a +3 or +5 for your line, going with the better players and keeping your players morale up. Right now I'm rocking a +5 as my first line with a 2nd liner and a 3rd liner on my first line and my 2nd liner is leading the team in points when I have about 5 first line forwards on my team lol.
my point is its not terribly implemented because its something that can be fun to use but is not necessary or required and doesn't interfere with the game if you don't wanna use it