In my humble opinion the best way to sum up EA NHL...
On this current gen is this:
Bad plays lead to good results more often than can even be explained in any language. Good plays lead to bad results at about the same frequency.
This is exactly why it’s super hard to tell who’s a good or bad player in this game anymore. And I’m going to follow with examples of what I’m talking.
Bad plays lead to good results more often than can even be explained in any language. Good plays lead to bad results at about the same frequency.
This is exactly why it’s super hard to tell who’s a good or bad player in this game anymore. And I’m going to follow with examples of what I’m talking.
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- No loss in shot power even when the puck is shot while in the offensive player’s feet. Or when puck possession is gained out of an AI ‘scrum’ where the offensive player just has to keep spamming the shot button and a legitimate scoring chance comes out of it even with a defender draped all over him. In last gen games you actually had to have good body positioning and momentum to get off dangerous shots. This is a huge skill gap issue.
- Poke checking. You guys have turned a simple defensive maneuver into a super risky one that is so much higher in risk than in reward. A well-timed poke check frequently goes into the puck carrier’s feet only for him to regain possession again. Or it stays on that player’s stick and doesn’t get “poked” at all. Yet a third scenario that exists is the poke checked puck, rather than going into open space, gets picked up by a trailing offensive player and the play continues without any loss in momentum. The latter issue appears to happen because of the way AI players are programmed to frantically dash toward any and all loose pucks and pick them up, which is exactly why dump and chase is such a wasteful and unrewarding style of play. These things weren’t issues on last gen games.
- Body checking in this current gen’s NHL is far too beneficial for the player getting hit. This is completely backwards. We all know about the issue where the checked player would coil around the puck to get up and retain possession. That’s gotten better over the years. There’s also an issue where well-timed “softer” checks don't create separation of the puck from the puck carrier when they should.
- Gliding through a crowd of defenders while maintaining possession of the puck even when there is obvious incidental contact. This has become a “skill” in current gen and all the game’s “better” players are abusing it because why not? On last gen NHL offensive ‘flair’ was executed more by way of well-timed toe drags and loose puck dekes, or just passing at the right time (ie. more hockey-like things). Which leads me to my next topic.
- Passing. Passing error, and I expect I’ll get some backlash for this point, is too high. So are AI interceptions. And this is precisely what leads to more and more puck ragging at higher levels. Some of the highest ranked players in VS. mode have 40-50 pass attempts per game. That’s an astonishingly low number! We shouldn’t have failed pass attempts just because our joystick was aimed a half mm off. The radius should be bigger like it used to. Passing the puck is an extremely innate thing to anyone that’s played hockey growing up and obviously even more so for NHL level players.
- Interceptions. Again, AI interceptions are super high as they’ve been for years in NHL games. But what’s really bad for ‘skill gap’ is the total lack of interceptions and pass deflections that are granted to user controllled players. This is a HUGE issue in this years game. You can have several user defenders parked right in passing lanes (in EASHL) and have the puck still go through them for a completed pass. At the same time this game is also filled with incidents where cross crease passes go through several AI defenders as well, which makes it all the more confusing.
So these are some of the things that I want to bring to the attention of the devs with videos. If anyone has any input of their own please feel free to join in with your own.
Defenders are told to passively feather LS with LT held down, rely solely on positioning unless a very specific criteria has been met where a button is able to be pressed with almost 100% confidence that no penalty will result from said button press, and hope that the game rewards them with puck possession and a good animation to avoid immediate puck loss which will also result in a breakaway.
Boring and admittedly not very satisfying to say the least.
I don't particularly blame EA as the tools are in place for a fast paced game, as are the tools to slow it to a crawl. The only thing that keeps HUT feeling somewhat quick are the inflated attributes and arcade-esque synergy bonuses. SHL might have merit were it not for the small (divided) player base, the persistence of glitches, and the overall goofiness of drop in.
NHL 20 is the first new gen version I've bothered to buy, but all of the graphic improvements haven't turned out to be enough of an improvement over the various PS3 versions I prefer to play to keep me interested for very long.
Oh well.
LG/Competitive players are the reason for this. They keep asking for “faster” gameplay and less defense which really only sees the acceleration slider get jacked up and puck control sky-rocket. The increased puck control leads to MORE trapping and MORE conservative play, and the fact that everyone can cover half the horizontal rink in less than a second means teams can trap/collapse even MORE effectively lol.
These people are constantly asking for things they think will improve their experience yet they end up complaining and hating it every year, because they don’t actually understand the sport, or sports in general. They think jacking up acceleration will = more goals when it actually does the opposite. They think making “faster” plays will result in super offensive games, but in 6s at least, this just leads to trapping and collapsing as you can’t touch RB, stick-lift is useless, checking is too inconsistent to use against top-flight guys who know how to shake-off hits, and then we have the absurd pass-interception levels to even remotely offset how little defenders can actually do in this game. So, the “clump 5” and feather LS looking for a pass interception meta is in full-swing.
They want less bumps to “open up the offense” when in reality that leads to MORE trapping and “more” perimeter space, but then we get into the human goalie debacle. Of course human goalies want “skill” to play a part, but they’re almost never screened which makes the expanded perimeter space practically useless in a 6v6 setting!
Oh and the jacked up acceleration/passing/shooting speeds, those make playing human goalie even remotely realistic absolutely impossible! “What does this lead to” you may ask if you don’t already know, but human goalies are glorified shooter-tutors! They stand still, hug a pipe occasionally, and “read” a play from their overhead perspective and move LS a tiny bit to make ridiculous one-timer saves. Maybe even throw-in a of stack or an “A-frame” so they don’t fall asleep playing the position!
Lastly, puck physics. If I can’t get a true bounce for the “flow” of the game, then why would I ever take a perimeter shot ever? Human goalies are never screened, one-timers miss the mark a ton (not really a problem) and puck deflections die on shafts/legs giving up free odd-man rushes for a shot that isn’t even a remotely good scoring opportunity despite the fact that there’s 3-5 screens setup lol.
This “competitive” community is horribly unskilled, know nothing about the sport, know nothing about game balance, and have asked for this meta that they hate, because they’re so incredibly stupid that they can’t figure out all of the changes they’ve asked for have essentially turned EASHL into the dead puck era.
Stop listing to nasher, jemima, hxndry, bones, hanek and the whole gang. Start listening to people than can actually articulate a coherent thought that know something about the sport.
This right here sums up what happened to 19 ,this is who they listened to and made a promising game into a mess ..like I said in another post until they stop listening to these so called elite players ,this series will never reach it's full potential ...my friend your post was excellent
Defined words. But very true. Thats so sad. Sometime it feels like people dont even want to try, that if you loose if you try to play hockey is much more worst then if you loose and behave like a duch.
Edit; but you can really put words on paper, you describe the phenomenon so good, made me laugh sometimes
I’ll start with this one:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AneWnw235_N7gyh2MaaR8FCiJuEw
Right at the start something that should NEVER happen and I haven’t the slightest clue as to why it does. This isn’t the only type of face off “win” that can end up in the hands of an opponent either. It’s just beyond me why a competitive game was designed this way.
Now at the end, right before the goal the guy makes the pass to his point man for the shot. I literally read that pass and was on my way after intercepting it (in my head) to an easy breakaway but EA decided “nah we’re good try again next time”.
So two things in this 13 second video alone where a team does a bad thing (lose face off AND make ill-timed pass) and gets a good result.
The faceoff most likely wouldn't have been intercepted had it been aimed towards a defender. I still have seen times when an opposing player was able to get the faceoff win before the defender though so it would be good to see that less likely. Even though it's not that common in my games. However, when you win a faceoff to a wing right next to an opposing player, this is the risk you take.
You didn't intercept the pass due to not having the reaction time and positioning to pick it up. The game wasn't just deciding to not let you pick it up because it was having a bad hair day.
Then there’s the hitting, bumping, pass interceptions and ’no action steals’ that are all pretty inconsistent and I honestly have no idea what to do with them other than to say that they need some serious streamlining. Why can you still shake of practically every hit if the puck carrier is large enough? Why do you have to glide to intercept passes? Why the autosauce pass is a thing (it’s really annoying when a normal R2 pass gets sauced over your skate or stick blade)? What is the game’s logic when you stick handle or just normally skate with the puck going under the stick shaft of a defender (if d is user controlled the outcome is ridiculously inconsistent, if d is AI puck gets stolen every time)?
I kinda agree with @untouchable_BF1 that EA really should stop listening to the YT/twitch and competitive dudebrahs for advice on balance and meta. A lot of those guys have mastered the current system and seem to just want their current playstyle to work better while the rest of us are screaming that it’s boring.
Kind of an off topic rant but it could spark some conversation.
What are you talking about? Reaction time to what? It’s kinda hard to tell from that video what exactly happened but to me it seems like the pass either went under the skate of just2sweet, between the skates or just slightly past the skates. If you try to break a pass with the skates it’s pretty damn hard to do any better than that.
The better play would’ve probably been to try to glide and intercept with the stick but that needs even more guesstimation and movement micromanagement.
I'm saying, the defender that possibly could have intercepted the pass was too close to the passer so they didn't have enough time to react to the interception. There also was a change made in the last update to make passes outside of their vision be more difficult to pick up.
Wait... Are the players unable to turn their head or something? Is the player’s zone of vision just a cone straight in front of them with no peripheral vision? If that’s the case it actually explains a lot...
The pass goes right in front of defesive player and is easily in his reach. It’s just an opinion of course but that pass should get intercepted.
I really don’t get the reaction time thing either. Especially when the pass is that close to the defender. Don’t the players in this game get enough sleep or have they actually been on a ten year long pot binge?
The speed of the pass and the ratings of players are all part of it as well. Possibly if they had the Defensive Minded perk, it may have been picked up, but it looks like they were too close to react quickly enough.
Yeah i get that but if that’s too close it’s a glaring error in the game IMO. There’s some feedback to send to the dev crew...
You didn’t answer my question about the zone of vision btw. I would really like to know the answer because I’m probably gonna change the way I try to intercept passes if the player’s vision is actually more like a camera than actual human eye sight.
It’s like the picture of the hockey player on the front of the packaging when it really should have a picture of a EKI instead
What build are they using? What is their defensive awareness rating? This is a very big contributor to intercepting passes. However, this is an awkward position as the puck is behind them and not easy to reach as it goes past them. They would have had to reach out with one hand, but at that is going to take longer than making the pass. They are best trying to pick it up as it goes past them, but that's not going to be guaranteed every time as it's dependent on ratings.
They won't be turning their head every time, but calculations are based on their zone of vision. Peripheral vision is also taken into account. However, it's not just being able to see the puck, but be in the best position to intercept it. When the puck is coming from behind, and close to the defender, they don't have as much reaction time to get in position to raise their chances of picking up the puck. Defensive awareness is a huge stat though and greatly contributes to interceptions.
I’m not going to start arguing over if that’s an awkward position or not and for all we know the player could have had the best possible def awareness. I’ve seen similar situations in HUT as well though where practically every player has 90+ def awareness.
My take from the video and the frame I posted is that the defensive player sees both the passer and the receiver and then moves into the passing lane. The player is in a normal skating stance when the pass goes right past him and it even looks like if he would’ve had his stick down on the ice it could’ve hit the stick accidentally.
It’s just my take against yours at this point and to me it looks like a perfectly interceptable pass.