Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
1)likely matchmaking. Finding a 6v6 outside of peak hours is extremely difficult and very time consuming. The amount of time on average it takes me to find a 6v6 game is over ten minutes, and to the point of where many of us just accept that we aren't going to find a 6v6 so we settle for 6v4, 4v5,etc. I've played less than 30 6v6 drop in games this year and I've searched in hopes of finding one probably close to 500-700 times. Consistently seeing rooms that don't fill up even the forward positions (the most sought out position in the game). Then you have one of those 6v5 games where everybody is desperately hoping for 6v6 but because one team is missing a dman, half of the lobby quits and what would have been close to a 6v6 is now a 5v3 game. Not fun at all.
A lobby system would deter this severely. You would see a room is almost full, so you'd go in to sneak your spot in in hopes of finding a position. There were always 3 open games back in the day. Always at minimum. Very likely you'd select the one that's almost full because that means there is less waiting. Goalie positions were ALWAYS a race to fill. Now goalie positions are tough to fill for multiple reasons but I'll get into that later. On this current engine, we are battling likely between 3-5 different games at the same time trying to start up because positions are specifically chosen. In one game that's created, you have 3 buddies searching for a game, in the other you have 2 buddies searching together, one a group of 4 and the rest randoms in all of those and only 3 goalies probably total looking. So here we are, the buddy games are clashing because rw is being taken probably 3 times, so they can't join the same team, the defense get put into different games so they aren't filling up 6v6 and the goalies are likely put into one game and the third into another. With all of the position clashing going on (because not everybody is choosing fwd, skater, def position, but usually lw, rw, c, Rd, ld, g) you're unlikely to get a full 6v6 because the matchmaking engine negates duplicate positions.
In a lobby game, I'd rather play on the opposite wing of my original choosing to play a 6v6 than to not find a game. Most people are fine with this if it means less boredom and you can play a fun game. But in this current Gen, because we are forced to change our load outs changing positions is kind of a pain in the neck (to choose hands most likely) so it's tedious to go from lw to rw, etc. People are also inclined to select a position that isn't their first choice either if it means a 6v6 can occur (a forward playing d or g).
2)trolling!!!! Yes, for the last 7 years we have been complaining about this and surprise, it's still an issue. Okay, but how to combat this? Having repercussions to trolling! That's right, the same method we use to teach children to become more responsible citizens, we can use against trolls to prevent them from trolling. Let's dive deeper into some options.
There needs to be some form of discipline. Wain had the idea of making them sit and watch the game on the bench. That's a great idea. They don't want to waste their own time, they want to waste others'. I'm all in for the idea of issuing warnings and bans. If somebody comes to you with video evidence of trolling, as a company that gets paid lots of money by consumers who buy this product year after year, you guys have to allocate funds to accommodate that or don't charge the AAA price. Simple as that. Implement a system that triggers a warning for trolling and if the problem persists, they get a suspension. If the problem persists they get banned from online play. So let's talk about what qualifies for these...
First of all, you're going to want to set up a real anti-grieving system. Ideas in the past have been amount of time spent offside per game, amount of time laying on ice per game, amount of time idle per game (this is already implemented thankfully, good job!), amount of time spent outside of the crease per game, amount of time spent in a desperation save per game, amount of fights per game, amount of penalties per game, etc. Put an amount of total seconds you can lay down on the ice, stay offside, a limit to being called offside per game, a limit to amount of fights per game, a limit to the amount of time out of crease / in desperation save, amount of interference penalties (around 3 is a fair amount, where a troll wouldn't take more than 2), amount of tripping/hooking/high sticking penalties (say around 5), etc. and once you hit that limit you receive a pop up on your game stating what you're doing is soon going to result in a kick from the game. If they ignore that message and continue, they get kicked and voila, trolls be gone! But hey, that doesn't stop them from doing it next game does it?
Well it can! After getting kicked from a game from anti-trolling measures, you get a mark on your account. Now after a certain amount of games played that mark on your account disappears if you have played properly. Now if you continue to troll with a mark on your account, you get a 1 day suspension. After the 1 day suspensiom if you continue to troll, you get a week suspension, after that a month, and after that the year. Nobody has to deal with this guy anymore and likely after the first suspension they'll realize that trolling doesn't benefit them but others, which goes directly against everything they're putting their effort into.
Now hey, what about those who just don't know the rules? What about the 12 year old kid who isn't familiar with hockey all that much? Well, with those pop up notifications showing them they're trolling, then that pop up will also explain what they can and cannot do so they can learn from that. If they can't learn from that, they shouldn't be online in the first place.
Okay, so now that we can find 6v6 games because there is a lobby system, and we don't have to worry as much about trolls, how can we further improve this experience? By improving on the previous design! As we all remember, in the old lobby system you could troll by middle sitting. Entering the room as the 12th person, and not selecting the position while everybody waits on you. Well, simple easy solution. Make the rooms compatible for 16 people. It's already a first come first serve room anyways, so the first 12 people to ready up get their position locked down. Middle sitting now becomes irrelevant. But what about the guys who don't ready up but locked the position? Well, as soon as they select the position they're readied up. Boom. Or, you can select the position and keep the need to ready up (in case somebody accidentally chose the wrong position) but if the lobby has at least 10/12 people who have selected the position, and 12/12 spots are filled, it automatically readies up the last 2 or something along that effect.
Well that still doesn't mean there aren't ways to troll. Absolutely correct, trolls will find a way to troll. This is where a vote to kick option can be implemented, but needs both teams to vote to kick one player, not just one team for a total of 80% of the votes in favour to kick. That way, people from the other team who just want to play a clean game can also vote to kick them, and if they feel it's an abuse of power from only the one team then they can veto the kick.
Ultimately in the end, because it's a lobby system, and the chat/shout box feature will be there, trolls can be called out and their names will be publicized as well. There's already famous trolls in this game that we are all well aware of. Ea has done nothing to prevent them from trolling, in fact they have only advocated their behaviour by not allowing others to out them and they have protected them by not suspending them even with clear video evidence as proof.
EA needs to be better to improve the experience. Allocate proper funding to improve the experience and you'll see the numbers come back up. Trolling wasn't nearly as prominent back in the day because everybody was well aware of who the trolls were so they'd back out of the games before they started because the shout box was filled with messages such as (watch out for such and such, they're a troll). Today there is no means of communication on ea nhl. You can't use a chat box for your own club, you can't chat in the lobby waiting for the game (unless both you and they have a mic and they aren't in a party), and so on and so forth. It's dumb that you can't even hear your teammates without a microphone of your own. Why is that?
By doing these changes, you're looking at more full games, you're eliminating time wasted for the user, you're improving the experience and you're promoting things like playing together in clubs, finding new people to play with, a need to join leagues and discords and shout boxes and parties, etc just to find games...
And best of all, you're going to get more people playing the game. I don't play the game as often as I do because I know I won't be playing the actual game. Right now it's in the morning. I'm not finding a 6v6 unless I spend an hour watching some second party app to see if anybody needs the position I play. Why should I waste an hour of my day to play with random people?
Stop pouring resources into things nobody cares about and pour them into things people need in this game. We are good with the articles of clothing, get the presentation crew to work on things like crowd atmosphere instead, we don't need new game modes, get them working on improving the gameplay experience and anti-trolling methods, we don't need snoop Dogg for commentary, we don't need 800 goal horns, etc. What we need is roster sharing, better ai, a better matchmaking system, to have trolls be held accountable, to make the game feel like a real hockey experience, to balance the tuners better, etc.
Numbers have actually gotten better since the last patch. Why is that? Because the gameplay is better. When you make things better, the market grows considerably. Aim to do that. The new hats isn't bringing in anybody from my friends list back. A better experience certainly will.
Back in the day, the experience was absolutely fantastic. The lobbies worked, finding clubs worked, finding new people to play with was fun, etc. I took it for granted. I thought the game would improve every year. It hasnt. It had a meteoric rise from 07-14, and then just got bombed on in 15 with a bare bones game and now you guys are now starting to get the footing again.
Focus on what matters and you'll be winning awards again easily for sports titles. Right now fifa doesn't emulate soccer, madden has been ultra stagnant, there isn't much else MLB can do, and 2k is stagnant but they focus on what works. There's a huge opportunity for hockey to be recognized how it used to be by the gaming community.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I definitely don't miss the race to position though. This often meant going through a few lobbies before getting your desired position. Then you had to hope you wouldn't get someone not choosing a side just to make the game take longer to start. And it felt like there were many times I was lucky my goalie wasn't that guy that didn't get his position and thought goalie would be fun to try.
The old system wasn't perfect. It was good for sure, but had its issues. It would be very interesting to see lobbies return though. I just don't think it's going to be a resolution for the issues with drop-in games now. Which are largely caused by how people decide to play.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I definitely don't miss the race to position though. This often meant going through a few lobbies before getting your desired position. Then you had to hope you wouldn't get someone not choosing a side just to make the game take longer to start. And it felt like there were many times I was lucky my goalie wasn't that guy that didn't get his position and thought goalie would be fun to try.
The old system wasn't perfect. It was good for sure, but had its issues. It would be very interesting to see lobbies return though. I just don't think it's going to be a resolution for the issues with drop-in games now. Which are largely caused by how people decide to play.
It has positives too regarding position selection.. when you have a goalie on one side but not the other with the time winding down, the goalie can fill an open slot to salvage the game, otherwise the players might panic quit before time runs out because one side doesn't have a goalie.
I think there's more positives than negatives.
Yes lobbies/server browsers are "old tech" but sometimes old tech is still good ;-)
EA Aljo. Good point on the ole grinding to 350, but it was fun. Like u said, give a reason to play and people will play. Maybe tweak it a bit somehow. Theres a few guys on here with giod suggestions, filter through them and who knows?
One last thing I'd mention for drop ins, couldn't we have the option to play indoors as well as outdoors?
On a final personal note to you, i would like to apologize for a post a while back directed at you. It was poor judgement on my part. I guess we'd all just like a great hockey game to play and connect with others.
In fact, for 6v6 population has never NOT been low.
If there are concerns of a lower population for this mode at the moment, instead of players queuing up for matchmaking you now have players out of matchmaking within a chat room/lobby not playing the game, thus potentially extending the wait times and limiting the matchmaking pool.
Growing up with lobbies for games I remember they were a ton of fun. You might still see them in some games these days, but not to the extent of what you used to. They would be a great addition on top of what we already have for those that really enjoy conversing with others and looking for rivalry type of matchups, but don't you think you can actually accomplish this through all the available communities available outside of the game? For example, there is a Looking for Group tool built into Xbox, a specific forum here for others looking to matchmake with a club, Facebook groups, Reddit groups, Discord, and so forth.
By adding this feature to the game, you have to dedicate resources in tackling potential toxic behavior, issues that arise, and likely add features requested by the community throughout the game's life-cycle. Your pitch, @HoodHoppers, is that this is required to revitalize EASHL where on paper this sounds logical because in order for us to have a GREAT EASHL experience, most of time it's a social factor that's playing a part in it. EASHL is honestly one of the coolest game modes out there when you have a group of friends online to play with. Those Friday and Saturday nights are unlike any other games I play! Implementing this with an intention of how it will be used doesn't mean it will work out the way we want it, unfortunately.
We've discussed this before in another thread and even NHLDev touched up on the lobby system about it. We know there are a lot of players that are interested in it but again, but there could be a whole lot of other ways we can help improve EASHL by incentivize better play from players whether it be for those dropping in, encourage to join clubs, rewards for Chel and/or HUT, and whatever else the community can help brainstorm.
Based off what you said the root of the problem is matchmaking with players that don't play their position properly, hog the puck, or troll.
So let's kick off the discussion like this:
How would you incentivize good play?
If another player didn't live up to your expectations on the ice, how would you go about enforcing proper play without deterring them from continuing to invest in that mode?
If there are concerns of a lower population for this mode at the moment, instead of players queuing up for matchmaking you now have players out of matchmaking within a chat room/lobby not playing the game, thus potentially extending the wait times and limiting the matchmaking pool.
Extending wait times? lol You can't be serious.
Let me give you an example:
NHL15 for PS3 has on average 100 online players on any given evening.
Could you imagine how long it would take to get a 6v6 game going if you had the current NHL20 matchmaker as your only means to get a game? It might take all night.
Lobby system.. you all jump in a room (central in this case), some one starts a room, and it gets filled in seconds. It's the sole reason why we can still play online 6v6 (OTP) in that game to this day.
but don't you think you can actually accomplish this through all the available communities available outside of the game? For example, there is a Looking for Group tool built into Xbox, a specific forum here for others looking to matchmake with a club, Facebook groups, Reddit groups, Discord, and so forth.
Why should you be forced to go OUTSIDE the game for this feature?
It should be IN the game that you're actually playing, isn't that much easier and more convenient?
I'm not saying get rid of the matchmaker, have that as well. Just like last gen, there was both and it worked great.
By adding this feature to the game, you have to dedicate resources in tackling potential toxic behavior, issues that arise, and likely add features requested by the community throughout the game's life-cycle.
Of course the lobby system in last gen was not perfect, but with a few tweaks you could drastically minimize the trolls and fix it's shortcomings.
[*] How would you incentivize good play?
[*] If another player didn't live up to your expectations on the ice, how would you go about enforcing proper play without deterring them from continuing to invest in that mode?
I don't know if you can. A troll is gonna troll. A bad player is going to try his/her best but will still be bad.
I would like to see a proper club practice mode like we used to have. Also a quick on ice test mode to quickly test fresh chel builds, again, like we used to have.
We really did have a lot of cool features last gen that were taken away for seemingly no reason.
Dont worry, theyll be back soon with a different name and advertised as all new. Theyve been doing that for years.
Can you give me an example where a feature was removed and returned as brand new, never before in the game? I'm not talking about a feature like DSS which was advertised as new and improved over the previous version.
Yeah outdoor rinks. You said never before has a NHL game had outdoor rinks. Go check out NHL '06.
I believe this is what you're talking about:
"For the first time in franchise history, step onto the pond and compete in the EA SPORTS Hockey League, NHL THREES, Play Now and the brand new modes NHL ONES and Pro-Am. In NHL ONES, you and two other players compete in a 1v1v1 free-for-all gauntlet. Showcase your skills and creativity with no rules, no stoppages, and no limits."
I'm not recalling outdoor rinks in NHL 06 and I can't find anything on that. I'm not saying they didn't exist, but I don't remember playing on them and they certainly weren't in EASHL. So, as far as I know, this was the first time you could play on a pond in EASHL. There was the Winter Classic in previous games and that is outdoors, but it wasn't on a pond.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I completely agree with that as well. It definitely had something to do with it. I personally am for bringing that back as it encourages people to play the game and adds a lot of fun challenges and incentives to competing and playing the right way.
I think I also forgot to answer what would help incentivize players to play the right way. Personally I think this helps tremendously. By getting a better player (similar to the NBA2k system), grinding out to make your player better is always a really fun experience personally for me. I like the grind to become better in games but I also understand for things like LG, balance is necessary.
So with that said, can we have both? Maybe at a certain level you unlock the ability to customize your own attributes? I really don't think it's hard to prevent abuse of the system, I really don't. You just need a system in place that enforces certain attributes to become more pricey to alot when you change your height/weight and once you get above 80-85 in an attribute, it becomes a lot more expensive.
Basically you can have 3 specialties and a decent trait, one of them possibly including size and weight. What I mean by this is hey, you can have a big player that can shoot well and dangle, but his passing, defense, checking and skating will be awful. Or you can have a small skater who is fast, can dangle and can shoot but his passing is weak, can't hit, can't defend, etc. Or a big and fast skater that can hit decently but doesn't have a good shot, etc. Or a big player than can shoot and can hit decently.
It's similar to our current set up anyways but our current set up only allows for certain builds. Right now I can't be a big playmaker, I can't be an enforcer who can pass or shoot, I can't be fast and hit like a truck, I can't be small and have good defensive stats, etc.
The thing that hurt the last customizable player option is that we were given far too many attribute points, top end attributes didn't cost as much as they should have and certain attributes are useless for online play so I could make a small fast forward who could shoot and pass and dangle so everybody eventually made their players that way. Why wouldn't you want a super stacked player? What they needed to do was once an attribute got past 80, decisions needed to be made whether to be elite in that stat and sacrifice another area of skill, or if you wanted decent stats in that area so they weren't super weak in others.
I used to love being a big checker that can pass but I can't do that anymore. Being able to work towards getting the player I want to play with would be great.
Another incentive could be possibly choosing a type of thing that you want as a reward. Instead of random hockey bags, maybe for winning games or having good grades you can choose to go for a random luck draw on gaining traits, unlocking a celebration, unlocking a specific article of clothing, unlocking something for club, unlocking a piece of equipment, etc. One thing that NBA2k does is a daily spin that has a chance to improve their myCareer player. That brings people back daily and could sway somebody to play a game.
Incentivize the leaderboards again? The leaderboards used to mean something. Now games played propels you into the leaderboards over having a real good winning percentage. The top 100 is littered with meh players who just play a lot of games, sitting next to the guy/team who has a record of 200-14. Why does the top 100 share a team that's 150-12 with a team that's 314-210? Those teams are in way different leagues skill wise.
I understand LG ruined custom stats, but there needs to be a way to accommodate both. Maybe once you hit 100 games you get to work on your own customizable traits and from there you can grind from being able to have 2 good traits to being able to have 3 specialty traits for the end game?
EA just can't stay complacent with their stats/attributes. If they can clearly see one player having super stacked attributes (which you shouldn't be able to) then they have to intervene and create an idea to stimie that.
Also maybe instead of games played needed for upgrading your player how about game time minutes with the added incentive of wins providing a slight bonus? That way you don't have guys boosting out of the gate. You still have to complete around 200 games worth of game minutes. No more going in, play 3 minutes and quitting, now you have to go in and get 12,000 gametime minutes played. This will also decrease the amount of guys quitting in games as well because now its not about the wins/losses but gametime completed and maybe a 25% bonus to your leveling if you win the game?
There's lots they can do, just need to brain storm.
I don't trust EA at all in implementing a vote to kick function. Look at what they have already done with kicking for poor team play... I've never seen a troll kicked by this function yet I've been kicked myself just for losing a few draws and taking 2 or 3 penalties. Meanwhile I am the driving force on my team with 5 points.
What about a rep system? At the end of the game you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to your team mates. This could also be abused but in the end it would probably balance itself out with the continuous trolls getting a bad rep, and this could be indicated beside their name in a lobby.
The problem is that there isn't a large enough community to segregate trolls/good players. Like in GTA when you basically got that time out for a day or two and could only play with others who had it as well.
I've mentioned even having some messages on the loading screen could help. Just friendly reminders to play nice. Would it force people to stop trolling? No.. but it may deter one or two here and there and that's better than nothing.
Also, maybe if they fixed the grading system, and you finished a week with certain grades you get an item or a perk..
As for the original post. I have posted about this since they removed the lobbies. There was no need.
The game had a community back then. You met people and played with them regularly. You still had the drop-in option which would actually drop people into the same lobbies. It was great. People also tended to use mics more back then and it was overall more fun and easier to get some team work going. All of the guys I play with today I met in those lobbies. I've known some of them for 10 years. We text outside of the game, I've even met one in real life and worked with him for a summer.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
1)likely matchmaking. Finding a 6v6 outside of peak hours is extremely difficult and very time consuming. The amount of time on average it takes me to find a 6v6 game is over ten minutes, and to the point of where many of us just accept that we aren't going to find a 6v6 so we settle for 6v4, 4v5,etc. I've played less than 30 6v6 drop in games this year and I've searched in hopes of finding one probably close to 500-700 times. Consistently seeing rooms that don't fill up even the forward positions (the most sought out position in the game). Then you have one of those 6v5 games where everybody is desperately hoping for 6v6 but because one team is missing a dman, half of the lobby quits and what would have been close to a 6v6 is now a 5v3 game. Not fun at all.
A lobby system would deter this severely. You would see a room is almost full, so you'd go in to sneak your spot in in hopes of finding a position. There were always 3 open games back in the day. Always at minimum. Very likely you'd select the one that's almost full because that means there is less waiting. Goalie positions were ALWAYS a race to fill. Now goalie positions are tough to fill for multiple reasons but I'll get into that later. On this current engine, we are battling likely between 3-5 different games at the same time trying to start up because positions are specifically chosen. In one game that's created, you have 3 buddies searching for a game, in the other you have 2 buddies searching together, one a group of 4 and the rest randoms in all of those and only 3 goalies probably total looking. So here we are, the buddy games are clashing because rw is being taken probably 3 times, so they can't join the same team, the defense get put into different games so they aren't filling up 6v6 and the goalies are likely put into one game and the third into another. With all of the position clashing going on (because not everybody is choosing fwd, skater, def position, but usually lw, rw, c, Rd, ld, g) you're unlikely to get a full 6v6 because the matchmaking engine negates duplicate positions.
In a lobby game, I'd rather play on the opposite wing of my original choosing to play a 6v6 than to not find a game. Most people are fine with this if it means less boredom and you can play a fun game. But in this current Gen, because we are forced to change our load outs changing positions is kind of a pain in the neck (to choose hands most likely) so it's tedious to go from lw to rw, etc. People are also inclined to select a position that isn't their first choice either if it means a 6v6 can occur (a forward playing d or g).
2)trolling!!!! Yes, for the last 7 years we have been complaining about this and surprise, it's still an issue. Okay, but how to combat this? Having repercussions to trolling! That's right, the same method we use to teach children to become more responsible citizens, we can use against trolls to prevent them from trolling. Let's dive deeper into some options.
There needs to be some form of discipline. Wain had the idea of making them sit and watch the game on the bench. That's a great idea. They don't want to waste their own time, they want to waste others'. I'm all in for the idea of issuing warnings and bans. If somebody comes to you with video evidence of trolling, as a company that gets paid lots of money by consumers who buy this product year after year, you guys have to allocate funds to accommodate that or don't charge the AAA price. Simple as that. Implement a system that triggers a warning for trolling and if the problem persists, they get a suspension. If the problem persists they get banned from online play. So let's talk about what qualifies for these...
First of all, you're going to want to set up a real anti-grieving system. Ideas in the past have been amount of time spent offside per game, amount of time laying on ice per game, amount of time idle per game (this is already implemented thankfully, good job!), amount of time spent outside of the crease per game, amount of time spent in a desperation save per game, amount of fights per game, amount of penalties per game, etc. Put an amount of total seconds you can lay down on the ice, stay offside, a limit to being called offside per game, a limit to amount of fights per game, a limit to the amount of time out of crease / in desperation save, amount of interference penalties (around 3 is a fair amount, where a troll wouldn't take more than 2), amount of tripping/hooking/high sticking penalties (say around 5), etc. and once you hit that limit you receive a pop up on your game stating what you're doing is soon going to result in a kick from the game. If they ignore that message and continue, they get kicked and voila, trolls be gone! But hey, that doesn't stop them from doing it next game does it?
Well it can! After getting kicked from a game from anti-trolling measures, you get a mark on your account. Now after a certain amount of games played that mark on your account disappears if you have played properly. Now if you continue to troll with a mark on your account, you get a 1 day suspension. After the 1 day suspensiom if you continue to troll, you get a week suspension, after that a month, and after that the year. Nobody has to deal with this guy anymore and likely after the first suspension they'll realize that trolling doesn't benefit them but others, which goes directly against everything they're putting their effort into.
Now hey, what about those who just don't know the rules? What about the 12 year old kid who isn't familiar with hockey all that much? Well, with those pop up notifications showing them they're trolling, then that pop up will also explain what they can and cannot do so they can learn from that. If they can't learn from that, they shouldn't be online in the first place.
Okay, so now that we can find 6v6 games because there is a lobby system, and we don't have to worry as much about trolls, how can we further improve this experience? By improving on the previous design! As we all remember, in the old lobby system you could troll by middle sitting. Entering the room as the 12th person, and not selecting the position while everybody waits on you. Well, simple easy solution. Make the rooms compatible for 16 people. It's already a first come first serve room anyways, so the first 12 people to ready up get their position locked down. Middle sitting now becomes irrelevant. But what about the guys who don't ready up but locked the position? Well, as soon as they select the position they're readied up. Boom. Or, you can select the position and keep the need to ready up (in case somebody accidentally chose the wrong position) but if the lobby has at least 10/12 people who have selected the position, and 12/12 spots are filled, it automatically readies up the last 2 or something along that effect.
Well that still doesn't mean there aren't ways to troll. Absolutely correct, trolls will find a way to troll. This is where a vote to kick option can be implemented, but needs both teams to vote to kick one player, not just one team for a total of 80% of the votes in favour to kick. That way, people from the other team who just want to play a clean game can also vote to kick them, and if they feel it's an abuse of power from only the one team then they can veto the kick.
Ultimately in the end, because it's a lobby system, and the chat/shout box feature will be there, trolls can be called out and their names will be publicized as well. There's already famous trolls in this game that we are all well aware of. Ea has done nothing to prevent them from trolling, in fact they have only advocated their behaviour by not allowing others to out them and they have protected them by not suspending them even with clear video evidence as proof.
EA needs to be better to improve the experience. Allocate proper funding to improve the experience and you'll see the numbers come back up. Trolling wasn't nearly as prominent back in the day because everybody was well aware of who the trolls were so they'd back out of the games before they started because the shout box was filled with messages such as (watch out for such and such, they're a troll). Today there is no means of communication on ea nhl. You can't use a chat box for your own club, you can't chat in the lobby waiting for the game (unless both you and they have a mic and they aren't in a party), and so on and so forth. It's dumb that you can't even hear your teammates without a microphone of your own. Why is that?
By doing these changes, you're looking at more full games, you're eliminating time wasted for the user, you're improving the experience and you're promoting things like playing together in clubs, finding new people to play with, a need to join leagues and discords and shout boxes and parties, etc just to find games...
And best of all, you're going to get more people playing the game. I don't play the game as often as I do because I know I won't be playing the actual game. Right now it's in the morning. I'm not finding a 6v6 unless I spend an hour watching some second party app to see if anybody needs the position I play. Why should I waste an hour of my day to play with random people?
Stop pouring resources into things nobody cares about and pour them into things people need in this game. We are good with the articles of clothing, get the presentation crew to work on things like crowd atmosphere instead, we don't need new game modes, get them working on improving the gameplay experience and anti-trolling methods, we don't need snoop Dogg for commentary, we don't need 800 goal horns, etc. What we need is roster sharing, better ai, a better matchmaking system, to have trolls be held accountable, to make the game feel like a real hockey experience, to balance the tuners better, etc.
Numbers have actually gotten better since the last patch. Why is that? Because the gameplay is better. When you make things better, the market grows considerably. Aim to do that. The new hats isn't bringing in anybody from my friends list back. A better experience certainly will.
Back in the day, the experience was absolutely fantastic. The lobbies worked, finding clubs worked, finding new people to play with was fun, etc. I took it for granted. I thought the game would improve every year. It hasnt. It had a meteoric rise from 07-14, and then just got bombed on in 15 with a bare bones game and now you guys are now starting to get the footing again.
Focus on what matters and you'll be winning awards again easily for sports titles. Right now fifa doesn't emulate soccer, madden has been ultra stagnant, there isn't much else MLB can do, and 2k is stagnant but they focus on what works. There's a huge opportunity for hockey to be recognized how it used to be by the gaming community.
Fully endorse this. Once I had time I was going to start a new thread with almost exactly what you suggested.
why is it so often i see a full dressing room of dropin randoms (based on it slowly filling up one by one) and when game is over i'll see everyone on my team was a sub 400 goon and the other team has 4-5 guys in the 750-900 range.
its obvious to me that either a) the system makes no attempt to balance the teams or b) it does but its just really bad at it.
whats even worse is the broken CR system that makes no sense that you have to deal with afterwards. In the above example, if I win I should get at least 25 pts every time, regardless of my own CR. how much CR I get should be based mostly on comparing the average of my teammates vs the team i'm playing. If I lose a game like that I should lose almost nothing. Its a team sport right? so if my team, without me, averages less than 400 and the team I'm playing averages almost double that? it should be expected I lose that game, so losing should lose almost no CR.
and I swear I've seen situations where I gain less points from beating a much better team than I gained from beating a lesser team. Makes me think either i'm completely missing something or system has bugs.
Not sure I feel about the grind to get to Legend 3.. On one hand it was very motivating and gave you something to play for(way better than playing for bags with clothing), on the other hand it sucks for new people starting off at 56 overall and having to play against players with way higher attributes.
Not sure I feel about the grind to get to Legend 3.. On one hand it was very motivating and gave you something to play for(way better than playing for bags with clothing), on the other hand it sucks for new people starting off at 56 overall and having to play against players with way higher attributes.
That's why I proposed starting off with the guys we have now and then grinding to get to customization. You don't start off at a disadvantage, you just haven't gained the ability to customize past these presets yet.
I'd just make it so that up to 75 is cheap for attributes, 75-80 is average cost, 80-85 is expensive, 85-90 is really expensive, 90-99 is so expensive you can't afford to be over 80 in any other stat.
And height and weight is included in attributes. To be taller you have to spend attribute points as well. So you can be tall and fast but chances of having multiple good attributes would be nearly impossible. You could be tall, fast and mediocre though if you wanted.
EA Aljo. Good point on the ole grinding to 350, but it was fun. Like u said, give a reason to play and people will play. Maybe tweak it a bit somehow. Theres a few guys on here with giod suggestions, filter through them and who knows?
One last thing I'd mention for drop ins, couldn't we have the option to play indoors as well as outdoors?
On a final personal note to you, i would like to apologize for a post a while back directed at you. It was poor judgement on my part. I guess we'd all just like a great hockey game to play and connect with others.
I prefer not having to grind out 350 games, but I for sure understand how that can give you more motivation to play.
It would be great to have the option to play indoors and outdoors. Maybe something like map selection that some games have.
All good, man. I definitely get the passion for this game. There are times I've rubbed people the wrong way unintentionally myself.
Not sure I feel about the grind to get to Legend 3.. On one hand it was very motivating and gave you something to play for(way better than playing for bags with clothing), on the other hand it sucks for new people starting off at 56 overall and having to play against players with way higher attributes.
That's why I proposed starting off with the guys we have now and then grinding to get to customization. You don't start off at a disadvantage, you just haven't gained the ability to customize past these presets yet.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I completely agree with that as well. It definitely had something to do with it. I personally am for bringing that back as it encourages people to play the game and adds a lot of fun challenges and incentives to competing and playing the right way.
I think I also forgot to answer what would help incentivize players to play the right way. Personally I think this helps tremendously. By getting a better player (similar to the NBA2k system), grinding out to make your player better is always a really fun experience personally for me. I like the grind to become better in games but I also understand for things like LG, balance is necessary.
So with that said, can we have both? Maybe at a certain level you unlock the ability to customize your own attributes? I really don't think it's hard to prevent abuse of the system, I really don't. You just need a system in place that enforces certain attributes to become more pricey to alot when you change your height/weight and once you get above 80-85 in an attribute, it becomes a lot more expensive.
Basically you can have 3 specialties and a decent trait, one of them possibly including size and weight. What I mean by this is hey, you can have a big player that can shoot well and dangle, but his passing, defense, checking and skating will be awful. Or you can have a small skater who is fast, can dangle and can shoot but his passing is weak, can't hit, can't defend, etc. Or a big and fast skater that can hit decently but doesn't have a good shot, etc. Or a big player than can shoot and can hit decently.
It's similar to our current set up anyways but our current set up only allows for certain builds. Right now I can't be a big playmaker, I can't be an enforcer who can pass or shoot, I can't be fast and hit like a truck, I can't be small and have good defensive stats, etc.
The thing that hurt the last customizable player option is that we were given far too many attribute points, top end attributes didn't cost as much as they should have and certain attributes are useless for online play so I could make a small fast forward who could shoot and pass and dangle so everybody eventually made their players that way. Why wouldn't you want a super stacked player? What they needed to do was once an attribute got past 80, decisions needed to be made whether to be elite in that stat and sacrifice another area of skill, or if you wanted decent stats in that area so they weren't super weak in others.
I used to love being a big checker that can pass but I can't do that anymore. Being able to work towards getting the player I want to play with would be great.
Another incentive could be possibly choosing a type of thing that you want as a reward. Instead of random hockey bags, maybe for winning games or having good grades you can choose to go for a random luck draw on gaining traits, unlocking a celebration, unlocking a specific article of clothing, unlocking something for club, unlocking a piece of equipment, etc. One thing that NBA2k does is a daily spin that has a chance to improve their myCareer player. That brings people back daily and could sway somebody to play a game.
Incentivize the leaderboards again? The leaderboards used to mean something. Now games played propels you into the leaderboards over having a real good winning percentage. The top 100 is littered with meh players who just play a lot of games, sitting next to the guy/team who has a record of 200-14. Why does the top 100 share a team that's 150-12 with a team that's 314-210? Those teams are in way different leagues skill wise.
I understand LG ruined custom stats, but there needs to be a way to accommodate both. Maybe once you hit 100 games you get to work on your own customizable traits and from there you can grind from being able to have 2 good traits to being able to have 3 specialty traits for the end game?
EA just can't stay complacent with their stats/attributes. If they can clearly see one player having super stacked attributes (which you shouldn't be able to) then they have to intervene and create an idea to stimie that.
Also maybe instead of games played needed for upgrading your player how about game time minutes with the added incentive of wins providing a slight bonus? That way you don't have guys boosting out of the gate. You still have to complete around 200 games worth of game minutes. No more going in, play 3 minutes and quitting, now you have to go in and get 12,000 gametime minutes played. This will also decrease the amount of guys quitting in games as well because now its not about the wins/losses but gametime completed and maybe a 25% bonus to your leveling if you win the game?
There's lots they can do, just need to brain storm.
Thanks for all the feedback, man. It's good stuff. I know the idea behind not being able to customize attributes was to provide an even playing field. This way it's more about skill and less about having higher attributes. I like this better than the previous system, but that's personal preference. I like how skill is more important than it used to be, but it's not like skill wasn't important with the card system. Having L3 didn't make you immune to losses. A higher skilled team full of S3 players could still beat an L3 team.
It would be good to see it return, but also have some more limitations to avoid people from maxing out only speed and shooting.
Thanks again. The input is most definitely appreciated.
As for the original post. I have posted about this since they removed the lobbies. There was no need.
The game had a community back then. You met people and played with them regularly. You still had the drop-in option which would actually drop people into the same lobbies. It was great. People also tended to use mics more back then and it was overall more fun and easier to get some team work going. All of the guys I play with today I met in those lobbies. I've known some of them for 10 years. We text outside of the game, I've even met one in real life and worked with him for a summer.
It would be really interesting to see if lobbies built a better community. That's how I met some of the best friends I have today. They're guys I met in that first year of EASHL. However, I have still met some great players this year. I think the biggest difference is more the lack of something to grind for. When you found good people to play with, it meant you could grind out some games together and your chances of winning were probably higher. You all stuck together and could spend a few hours or so playing and getting to know each other. That can happen regardless of lobbies.
Alright we've already discussed this like crazy but I'll bring up all of the great ideas in the past again... This needs to be enforced and put into next year's game because quite frankly eashl is slowly dying without it.
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I completely agree with that as well. It definitely had something to do with it. I personally am for bringing that back as it encourages people to play the game and adds a lot of fun challenges and incentives to competing and playing the right way.
I think I also forgot to answer what would help incentivize players to play the right way. Personally I think this helps tremendously. By getting a better player (similar to the NBA2k system), grinding out to make your player better is always a really fun experience personally for me. I like the grind to become better in games but I also understand for things like LG, balance is necessary.
So with that said, can we have both? Maybe at a certain level you unlock the ability to customize your own attributes? I really don't think it's hard to prevent abuse of the system, I really don't. You just need a system in place that enforces certain attributes to become more pricey to alot when you change your height/weight and once you get above 80-85 in an attribute, it becomes a lot more expensive.
Basically you can have 3 specialties and a decent trait, one of them possibly including size and weight. What I mean by this is hey, you can have a big player that can shoot well and dangle, but his passing, defense, checking and skating will be awful. Or you can have a small skater who is fast, can dangle and can shoot but his passing is weak, can't hit, can't defend, etc. Or a big and fast skater that can hit decently but doesn't have a good shot, etc. Or a big player than can shoot and can hit decently.
It's similar to our current set up anyways but our current set up only allows for certain builds. Right now I can't be a big playmaker, I can't be an enforcer who can pass or shoot, I can't be fast and hit like a truck, I can't be small and have good defensive stats, etc.
The thing that hurt the last customizable player option is that we were given far too many attribute points, top end attributes didn't cost as much as they should have and certain attributes are useless for online play so I could make a small fast forward who could shoot and pass and dangle so everybody eventually made their players that way. Why wouldn't you want a super stacked player? What they needed to do was once an attribute got past 80, decisions needed to be made whether to be elite in that stat and sacrifice another area of skill, or if you wanted decent stats in that area so they weren't super weak in others.
I used to love being a big checker that can pass but I can't do that anymore. Being able to work towards getting the player I want to play with would be great.
Another incentive could be possibly choosing a type of thing that you want as a reward. Instead of random hockey bags, maybe for winning games or having good grades you can choose to go for a random luck draw on gaining traits, unlocking a celebration, unlocking a specific article of clothing, unlocking something for club, unlocking a piece of equipment, etc. One thing that NBA2k does is a daily spin that has a chance to improve their myCareer player. That brings people back daily and could sway somebody to play a game.
Incentivize the leaderboards again? The leaderboards used to mean something. Now games played propels you into the leaderboards over having a real good winning percentage. The top 100 is littered with meh players who just play a lot of games, sitting next to the guy/team who has a record of 200-14. Why does the top 100 share a team that's 150-12 with a team that's 314-210? Those teams are in way different leagues skill wise.
I understand LG ruined custom stats, but there needs to be a way to accommodate both. Maybe once you hit 100 games you get to work on your own customizable traits and from there you can grind from being able to have 2 good traits to being able to have 3 specialty traits for the end game?
EA just can't stay complacent with their stats/attributes. If they can clearly see one player having super stacked attributes (which you shouldn't be able to) then they have to intervene and create an idea to stimie that.
Also maybe instead of games played needed for upgrading your player how about game time minutes with the added incentive of wins providing a slight bonus? That way you don't have guys boosting out of the gate. You still have to complete around 200 games worth of game minutes. No more going in, play 3 minutes and quitting, now you have to go in and get 12,000 gametime minutes played. This will also decrease the amount of guys quitting in games as well because now its not about the wins/losses but gametime completed and maybe a 25% bonus to your leveling if you win the game?
There's lots they can do, just need to brain storm.
I don't trust EA at all in implementing a vote to kick function. Look at what they have already done with kicking for poor team play... I've never seen a troll kicked by this function yet I've been kicked myself just for losing a few draws and taking 2 or 3 penalties. Meanwhile I am the driving force on my team with 5 points.
What about a rep system? At the end of the game you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to your team mates. This could also be abused but in the end it would probably balance itself out with the continuous trolls getting a bad rep, and this could be indicated beside their name in a lobby.
The problem is that there isn't a large enough community to segregate trolls/good players. Like in GTA when you basically got that time out for a day or two and could only play with others who had it as well.
I've mentioned even having some messages on the loading screen could help. Just friendly reminders to play nice. Would it force people to stop trolling? No.. but it may deter one or two here and there and that's better than nothing.
Also, maybe if they fixed the grading system, and you finished a week with certain grades you get an item or a perk..
The win-at-all-costs mentality is also a huge contributor to trolling. Ever played as a goalie, or on a team with a human goalie and the defense is utter crap so the goalie gets lit up?? Of course it's the "you suck goalie. Leave. YOU'RE NO GOOD. LEAAAAAVVVE"
It's pretty easy to tell when it happens cause next thing you know, your opponent goalie is wandering around and letting in all the goals he can. When I see this, sure enough I tell my teammates that the goalie is getting crapped all over by his teammates.
EA Aljo. Good point on the ole grinding to 350, but it was fun. Like u said, give a reason to play and people will play. Maybe tweak it a bit somehow. Theres a few guys on here with giod suggestions, filter through them and who knows?
One last thing I'd mention for drop ins, couldn't we have the option to play indoors as well as outdoors?
On a final personal note to you, i would like to apologize for a post a while back directed at you. It was poor judgement on my part. I guess we'd all just like a great hockey game to play and connect with others.
I prefer not having to grind out 350 games, but I for sure understand how that can give you more motivation to play.
It would be great to have the option to play indoors and outdoors. Maybe something like map selection that some games have.
All good, man. I definitely get the passion for this game. There are times I've rubbed people the wrong way unintentionally myself.
But as Hoodhoppers suggested, maybe if you don't grind you still get like maybe 85% of all available attributes and get the other 15% through grinding.
Or maybe all attributes are available, but through grinding you can get maybe a few special attributes that are not available without a grind.
Anyways, something along the lines he is suggesting would be a happy medium I would think. Makes sense, isn't game breaking and you wouldn't be severely handicapped if you didn't put the grind in.
Map selection is an absolute must imo.
To be fair, I think every one of us has been guilty of rubbing people the wrong way at one point or another. Even I may be guilty of having done it like maaaaaaybe once or twice
Replies
First, let's examine why nobody plays drop ins anymore (what used to be the most popular eashl mode hands down).
1)likely matchmaking. Finding a 6v6 outside of peak hours is extremely difficult and very time consuming. The amount of time on average it takes me to find a 6v6 game is over ten minutes, and to the point of where many of us just accept that we aren't going to find a 6v6 so we settle for 6v4, 4v5,etc. I've played less than 30 6v6 drop in games this year and I've searched in hopes of finding one probably close to 500-700 times. Consistently seeing rooms that don't fill up even the forward positions (the most sought out position in the game). Then you have one of those 6v5 games where everybody is desperately hoping for 6v6 but because one team is missing a dman, half of the lobby quits and what would have been close to a 6v6 is now a 5v3 game. Not fun at all.
A lobby system would deter this severely. You would see a room is almost full, so you'd go in to sneak your spot in in hopes of finding a position. There were always 3 open games back in the day. Always at minimum. Very likely you'd select the one that's almost full because that means there is less waiting. Goalie positions were ALWAYS a race to fill. Now goalie positions are tough to fill for multiple reasons but I'll get into that later. On this current engine, we are battling likely between 3-5 different games at the same time trying to start up because positions are specifically chosen. In one game that's created, you have 3 buddies searching for a game, in the other you have 2 buddies searching together, one a group of 4 and the rest randoms in all of those and only 3 goalies probably total looking. So here we are, the buddy games are clashing because rw is being taken probably 3 times, so they can't join the same team, the defense get put into different games so they aren't filling up 6v6 and the goalies are likely put into one game and the third into another. With all of the position clashing going on (because not everybody is choosing fwd, skater, def position, but usually lw, rw, c, Rd, ld, g) you're unlikely to get a full 6v6 because the matchmaking engine negates duplicate positions.
In a lobby game, I'd rather play on the opposite wing of my original choosing to play a 6v6 than to not find a game. Most people are fine with this if it means less boredom and you can play a fun game. But in this current Gen, because we are forced to change our load outs changing positions is kind of a pain in the neck (to choose hands most likely) so it's tedious to go from lw to rw, etc. People are also inclined to select a position that isn't their first choice either if it means a 6v6 can occur (a forward playing d or g).
2)trolling!!!! Yes, for the last 7 years we have been complaining about this and surprise, it's still an issue. Okay, but how to combat this? Having repercussions to trolling! That's right, the same method we use to teach children to become more responsible citizens, we can use against trolls to prevent them from trolling. Let's dive deeper into some options.
There needs to be some form of discipline. Wain had the idea of making them sit and watch the game on the bench. That's a great idea. They don't want to waste their own time, they want to waste others'. I'm all in for the idea of issuing warnings and bans. If somebody comes to you with video evidence of trolling, as a company that gets paid lots of money by consumers who buy this product year after year, you guys have to allocate funds to accommodate that or don't charge the AAA price. Simple as that. Implement a system that triggers a warning for trolling and if the problem persists, they get a suspension. If the problem persists they get banned from online play. So let's talk about what qualifies for these...
First of all, you're going to want to set up a real anti-grieving system. Ideas in the past have been amount of time spent offside per game, amount of time laying on ice per game, amount of time idle per game (this is already implemented thankfully, good job!), amount of time spent outside of the crease per game, amount of time spent in a desperation save per game, amount of fights per game, amount of penalties per game, etc. Put an amount of total seconds you can lay down on the ice, stay offside, a limit to being called offside per game, a limit to amount of fights per game, a limit to the amount of time out of crease / in desperation save, amount of interference penalties (around 3 is a fair amount, where a troll wouldn't take more than 2), amount of tripping/hooking/high sticking penalties (say around 5), etc. and once you hit that limit you receive a pop up on your game stating what you're doing is soon going to result in a kick from the game. If they ignore that message and continue, they get kicked and voila, trolls be gone! But hey, that doesn't stop them from doing it next game does it?
Well it can! After getting kicked from a game from anti-trolling measures, you get a mark on your account. Now after a certain amount of games played that mark on your account disappears if you have played properly. Now if you continue to troll with a mark on your account, you get a 1 day suspension. After the 1 day suspensiom if you continue to troll, you get a week suspension, after that a month, and after that the year. Nobody has to deal with this guy anymore and likely after the first suspension they'll realize that trolling doesn't benefit them but others, which goes directly against everything they're putting their effort into.
Now hey, what about those who just don't know the rules? What about the 12 year old kid who isn't familiar with hockey all that much? Well, with those pop up notifications showing them they're trolling, then that pop up will also explain what they can and cannot do so they can learn from that. If they can't learn from that, they shouldn't be online in the first place.
Okay, so now that we can find 6v6 games because there is a lobby system, and we don't have to worry as much about trolls, how can we further improve this experience? By improving on the previous design! As we all remember, in the old lobby system you could troll by middle sitting. Entering the room as the 12th person, and not selecting the position while everybody waits on you. Well, simple easy solution. Make the rooms compatible for 16 people. It's already a first come first serve room anyways, so the first 12 people to ready up get their position locked down. Middle sitting now becomes irrelevant. But what about the guys who don't ready up but locked the position? Well, as soon as they select the position they're readied up. Boom. Or, you can select the position and keep the need to ready up (in case somebody accidentally chose the wrong position) but if the lobby has at least 10/12 people who have selected the position, and 12/12 spots are filled, it automatically readies up the last 2 or something along that effect.
Well that still doesn't mean there aren't ways to troll. Absolutely correct, trolls will find a way to troll. This is where a vote to kick option can be implemented, but needs both teams to vote to kick one player, not just one team for a total of 80% of the votes in favour to kick. That way, people from the other team who just want to play a clean game can also vote to kick them, and if they feel it's an abuse of power from only the one team then they can veto the kick.
Ultimately in the end, because it's a lobby system, and the chat/shout box feature will be there, trolls can be called out and their names will be publicized as well. There's already famous trolls in this game that we are all well aware of. Ea has done nothing to prevent them from trolling, in fact they have only advocated their behaviour by not allowing others to out them and they have protected them by not suspending them even with clear video evidence as proof.
EA needs to be better to improve the experience. Allocate proper funding to improve the experience and you'll see the numbers come back up. Trolling wasn't nearly as prominent back in the day because everybody was well aware of who the trolls were so they'd back out of the games before they started because the shout box was filled with messages such as (watch out for such and such, they're a troll). Today there is no means of communication on ea nhl. You can't use a chat box for your own club, you can't chat in the lobby waiting for the game (unless both you and they have a mic and they aren't in a party), and so on and so forth. It's dumb that you can't even hear your teammates without a microphone of your own. Why is that?
By doing these changes, you're looking at more full games, you're eliminating time wasted for the user, you're improving the experience and you're promoting things like playing together in clubs, finding new people to play with, a need to join leagues and discords and shout boxes and parties, etc just to find games...
And best of all, you're going to get more people playing the game. I don't play the game as often as I do because I know I won't be playing the actual game. Right now it's in the morning. I'm not finding a 6v6 unless I spend an hour watching some second party app to see if anybody needs the position I play. Why should I waste an hour of my day to play with random people?
Stop pouring resources into things nobody cares about and pour them into things people need in this game. We are good with the articles of clothing, get the presentation crew to work on things like crowd atmosphere instead, we don't need new game modes, get them working on improving the gameplay experience and anti-trolling methods, we don't need snoop Dogg for commentary, we don't need 800 goal horns, etc. What we need is roster sharing, better ai, a better matchmaking system, to have trolls be held accountable, to make the game feel like a real hockey experience, to balance the tuners better, etc.
Numbers have actually gotten better since the last patch. Why is that? Because the gameplay is better. When you make things better, the market grows considerably. Aim to do that. The new hats isn't bringing in anybody from my friends list back. A better experience certainly will.
Back in the day, the experience was absolutely fantastic. The lobbies worked, finding clubs worked, finding new people to play with was fun, etc. I took it for granted. I thought the game would improve every year. It hasnt. It had a meteoric rise from 07-14, and then just got bombed on in 15 with a bare bones game and now you guys are now starting to get the footing again.
Focus on what matters and you'll be winning awards again easily for sports titles. Right now fifa doesn't emulate soccer, madden has been ultra stagnant, there isn't much else MLB can do, and 2k is stagnant but they focus on what works. There's a huge opportunity for hockey to be recognized how it used to be by the gaming community.
This was also when you had to grind out 350 games to get L3. There was a rush to get there as fast as you could and it was a good way to keep progressing when your club wasn't online. I think if we had that progression system again, you'd see more playing drop-ins as you have more of a reason to play.
I definitely don't miss the race to position though. This often meant going through a few lobbies before getting your desired position. Then you had to hope you wouldn't get someone not choosing a side just to make the game take longer to start. And it felt like there were many times I was lucky my goalie wasn't that guy that didn't get his position and thought goalie would be fun to try.
The old system wasn't perfect. It was good for sure, but had its issues. It would be very interesting to see lobbies return though. I just don't think it's going to be a resolution for the issues with drop-in games now. Which are largely caused by how people decide to play.
It has positives too regarding position selection.. when you have a goalie on one side but not the other with the time winding down, the goalie can fill an open slot to salvage the game, otherwise the players might panic quit before time runs out because one side doesn't have a goalie.
I think there's more positives than negatives.
Yes lobbies/server browsers are "old tech" but sometimes old tech is still good ;-)
One last thing I'd mention for drop ins, couldn't we have the option to play indoors as well as outdoors?
On a final personal note to you, i would like to apologize for a post a while back directed at you. It was poor judgement on my part. I guess we'd all just like a great hockey game to play and connect with others.
It was called Free4all. Think it was 1v1v1.
I completely agree with that as well. It definitely had something to do with it. I personally am for bringing that back as it encourages people to play the game and adds a lot of fun challenges and incentives to competing and playing the right way.
I think I also forgot to answer what would help incentivize players to play the right way. Personally I think this helps tremendously. By getting a better player (similar to the NBA2k system), grinding out to make your player better is always a really fun experience personally for me. I like the grind to become better in games but I also understand for things like LG, balance is necessary.
So with that said, can we have both? Maybe at a certain level you unlock the ability to customize your own attributes? I really don't think it's hard to prevent abuse of the system, I really don't. You just need a system in place that enforces certain attributes to become more pricey to alot when you change your height/weight and once you get above 80-85 in an attribute, it becomes a lot more expensive.
Basically you can have 3 specialties and a decent trait, one of them possibly including size and weight. What I mean by this is hey, you can have a big player that can shoot well and dangle, but his passing, defense, checking and skating will be awful. Or you can have a small skater who is fast, can dangle and can shoot but his passing is weak, can't hit, can't defend, etc. Or a big and fast skater that can hit decently but doesn't have a good shot, etc. Or a big player than can shoot and can hit decently.
It's similar to our current set up anyways but our current set up only allows for certain builds. Right now I can't be a big playmaker, I can't be an enforcer who can pass or shoot, I can't be fast and hit like a truck, I can't be small and have good defensive stats, etc.
The thing that hurt the last customizable player option is that we were given far too many attribute points, top end attributes didn't cost as much as they should have and certain attributes are useless for online play so I could make a small fast forward who could shoot and pass and dangle so everybody eventually made their players that way. Why wouldn't you want a super stacked player? What they needed to do was once an attribute got past 80, decisions needed to be made whether to be elite in that stat and sacrifice another area of skill, or if you wanted decent stats in that area so they weren't super weak in others.
I used to love being a big checker that can pass but I can't do that anymore. Being able to work towards getting the player I want to play with would be great.
Another incentive could be possibly choosing a type of thing that you want as a reward. Instead of random hockey bags, maybe for winning games or having good grades you can choose to go for a random luck draw on gaining traits, unlocking a celebration, unlocking a specific article of clothing, unlocking something for club, unlocking a piece of equipment, etc. One thing that NBA2k does is a daily spin that has a chance to improve their myCareer player. That brings people back daily and could sway somebody to play a game.
Incentivize the leaderboards again? The leaderboards used to mean something. Now games played propels you into the leaderboards over having a real good winning percentage. The top 100 is littered with meh players who just play a lot of games, sitting next to the guy/team who has a record of 200-14. Why does the top 100 share a team that's 150-12 with a team that's 314-210? Those teams are in way different leagues skill wise.
I understand LG ruined custom stats, but there needs to be a way to accommodate both. Maybe once you hit 100 games you get to work on your own customizable traits and from there you can grind from being able to have 2 good traits to being able to have 3 specialty traits for the end game?
EA just can't stay complacent with their stats/attributes. If they can clearly see one player having super stacked attributes (which you shouldn't be able to) then they have to intervene and create an idea to stimie that.
Also maybe instead of games played needed for upgrading your player how about game time minutes with the added incentive of wins providing a slight bonus? That way you don't have guys boosting out of the gate. You still have to complete around 200 games worth of game minutes. No more going in, play 3 minutes and quitting, now you have to go in and get 12,000 gametime minutes played. This will also decrease the amount of guys quitting in games as well because now its not about the wins/losses but gametime completed and maybe a 25% bonus to your leveling if you win the game?
There's lots they can do, just need to brain storm.
What about a rep system? At the end of the game you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to your team mates. This could also be abused but in the end it would probably balance itself out with the continuous trolls getting a bad rep, and this could be indicated beside their name in a lobby.
The problem is that there isn't a large enough community to segregate trolls/good players. Like in GTA when you basically got that time out for a day or two and could only play with others who had it as well.
I've mentioned even having some messages on the loading screen could help. Just friendly reminders to play nice. Would it force people to stop trolling? No.. but it may deter one or two here and there and that's better than nothing.
Also, maybe if they fixed the grading system, and you finished a week with certain grades you get an item or a perk..
The game had a community back then. You met people and played with them regularly. You still had the drop-in option which would actually drop people into the same lobbies. It was great. People also tended to use mics more back then and it was overall more fun and easier to get some team work going. All of the guys I play with today I met in those lobbies. I've known some of them for 10 years. We text outside of the game, I've even met one in real life and worked with him for a summer.
Fully endorse this. Once I had time I was going to start a new thread with almost exactly what you suggested.
its obvious to me that either a) the system makes no attempt to balance the teams or b) it does but its just really bad at it.
whats even worse is the broken CR system that makes no sense that you have to deal with afterwards. In the above example, if I win I should get at least 25 pts every time, regardless of my own CR. how much CR I get should be based mostly on comparing the average of my teammates vs the team i'm playing. If I lose a game like that I should lose almost nothing. Its a team sport right? so if my team, without me, averages less than 400 and the team I'm playing averages almost double that? it should be expected I lose that game, so losing should lose almost no CR.
and I swear I've seen situations where I gain less points from beating a much better team than I gained from beating a lesser team. Makes me think either i'm completely missing something or system has bugs.
That's why I proposed starting off with the guys we have now and then grinding to get to customization. You don't start off at a disadvantage, you just haven't gained the ability to customize past these presets yet.
And height and weight is included in attributes. To be taller you have to spend attribute points as well. So you can be tall and fast but chances of having multiple good attributes would be nearly impossible. You could be tall, fast and mediocre though if you wanted.
I prefer not having to grind out 350 games, but I for sure understand how that can give you more motivation to play.
It would be great to have the option to play indoors and outdoors. Maybe something like map selection that some games have.
All good, man. I definitely get the passion for this game. There are times I've rubbed people the wrong way unintentionally myself.
aren't you describing what we already have?
Thanks for all the feedback, man. It's good stuff. I know the idea behind not being able to customize attributes was to provide an even playing field. This way it's more about skill and less about having higher attributes. I like this better than the previous system, but that's personal preference. I like how skill is more important than it used to be, but it's not like skill wasn't important with the card system. Having L3 didn't make you immune to losses. A higher skilled team full of S3 players could still beat an L3 team.
It would be good to see it return, but also have some more limitations to avoid people from maxing out only speed and shooting.
Thanks again. The input is most definitely appreciated.
It would be really interesting to see if lobbies built a better community. That's how I met some of the best friends I have today. They're guys I met in that first year of EASHL. However, I have still met some great players this year. I think the biggest difference is more the lack of something to grind for. When you found good people to play with, it meant you could grind out some games together and your chances of winning were probably higher. You all stuck together and could spend a few hours or so playing and getting to know each other. That can happen regardless of lobbies.
I like this. Start brainstorming guys
The win-at-all-costs mentality is also a huge contributor to trolling. Ever played as a goalie, or on a team with a human goalie and the defense is utter crap so the goalie gets lit up?? Of course it's the "you suck goalie. Leave. YOU'RE NO GOOD. LEAAAAAVVVE"
It's pretty easy to tell when it happens cause next thing you know, your opponent goalie is wandering around and letting in all the goals he can. When I see this, sure enough I tell my teammates that the goalie is getting crapped all over by his teammates.
But as Hoodhoppers suggested, maybe if you don't grind you still get like maybe 85% of all available attributes and get the other 15% through grinding.
Or maybe all attributes are available, but through grinding you can get maybe a few special attributes that are not available without a grind.
Anyways, something along the lines he is suggesting would be a happy medium I would think. Makes sense, isn't game breaking and you wouldn't be severely handicapped if you didn't put the grind in.
Map selection is an absolute must imo.
To be fair, I think every one of us has been guilty of rubbing people the wrong way at one point or another. Even I may be guilty of having done it like maaaaaaybe once or twice