Bring back EASHL community lobbies! Why was it taken out?
Back on the older generation consoles we had a thing known as community lobbies. Many of us met out club members throughout it and for some reason it was taken out once PS4 and Xbox One arrived. Why was that exactly? Is there any detail for this reason?
We're now stuck with the unfortunate outdoor drop-in lobbies ( Bring back indoor drop-in hockey asap ) or forced to create practice clubs just to avoid trolls. Before we could create a private lobby within the communities that worked for the most part.
It also made it easier to find games during late nights. Please bring it back EA Sports!
We're now stuck with the unfortunate outdoor drop-in lobbies ( Bring back indoor drop-in hockey asap ) or forced to create practice clubs just to avoid trolls. Before we could create a private lobby within the communities that worked for the most part.
It also made it easier to find games during late nights. Please bring it back EA Sports!
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Who needs lobbies 😑
I've been posting this since they removed lobbies and the official EA was response was just that. Old tech.
I agree. We need lobbies. This is how I met the people I play with today...
Absolutely absurd that they have been removed.
Yep and it has made it much more difficult to recruit players, as the a lot of the guys on the PSN communities are pretty trash. Yesterday it took me 4 hours to get a drop in game because of lobby trolls.
[Socair - edited to remove call out; please don’t name and shame]
Have matchmaking too, but definitely have a custom lobby option.
@NHLDev mentioned an idea they were throwing around about having it so you have have fully customizable custom lobbies:
This argument again?
Have both, simple solution. Last gen you had both, custom lobbies AND matchmaking, and it worked great.
Yeah sometimes you don't get the position you want, sometimes you can't be LW all night. I don't know how many times I selected FW in NHL20 and could never get more that 3 players per side because everyone wants to play forward. After trying a good half dozen times I just select D because I just want to play a game. Same thing happens no matter the system.
Good thing about the old system is if only 1 team has a goalie, but there's an open D spot, the goalie can jump in the D spot to salvage the game instead of everyone panic quitting with 6 seconds left because another goalie isn't coming.
As for the trolls that sit in the middle, that is a simple solution too. Just allow more players to enter the lobby, then the troll in the middle will be sitting there as the game readies up.
This game has so many modes now that's splitting the already pretty small player base, custom lobbies are a needed addition.
NHL15 for PS3 still has an active player base of around 100-120 average people online every night.. yet you can still find full 6v6 games easily.
Edit: I also think you should get ride of the timer for custom lobbies, or whoever starts the room has the option to turn the timer off or adjust the time limit.
Nothing is as simple as you think. It's a lot easier to think of up ideas than it is to implement them without issue.
I don't think we should get rid of the other modes and force everyone to only play 6v6. There were a lot of requests for 3v3 play.
Lobbies are nice. I'll agree with you there, but I personally prefer the current system as the trolls previously drove me crazy and I hated racing for a position. I like knowing that I can choose which position I want. I can choose D and play either side. I can choose SKT if I'm cool with a forward or D position. I think there's always room for improvement when it comes to matchmaking, but I'm not totally sold on the old lobby system.
Sure. Being able to disable the timer would be nice, but it's pretty rare someone isn't ready to go when it comes to a custom game so I'd rather see other areas get attention first. Again, it's not a simple thing to implement. If you're going to spend time on something that's going to really only make a difference to a few people, it seems that time is better spent on something that will make a bigger impact with more of the players.
But you don't play drop in.. I believe you said you play HUT. The majority of people who play drops want this.
Wanna know what's worse than a troll that sits in a lobby? One that enters the game and goes offside and lays down. No way to report it.. nothing you can do about it.. you just lose CR and hope it doesn't happen again. But.. if you don't play this mode you're not aware of this problem. I would much rather have trolls sit in lobbies and not lose CR than deal with these people. We also have problems when trying to enter with a friend and 1 person gets into the lobby and one doesn't.. this is NOT a better system.
I suppose they should keep the matchmaking how it is so that someone who plays HUT can have the new lobbies if they do decide to play drop-in sometime!
I suppose we could spend more time on 1's! Right!?
I play a lot of EASHL, but not many drop-ins this year. I have played a ton of them over the years, but I only have about 50 of them in 20. Without needing to grind out L3, I don't need to play them. I spend the majority of my time in club games. However, I'm very familiar with drop-ins. I also said it was my personal preference for the current lobbies because I was always frustrated with the old lobbies. Most of the time it took several tries to even get into a game due to the reasons I mentioned previously. Then, when you were in a game, many times there were the trolls you talked about. I've had some amazing games with drop-ins and met a lot of great guys to play with. Some of my best friends are the result of playing drop-ins. These days though, I have enough friends for club games so I choose to spend my time there instead.
As far as not having your friend be able to join, that would be a different issue and one we'd have to troubleshoot. That is, if it's happening every time. If it's occasional, that would be harder to track down.
Not to be rude but it is a bit shortsighted to just say oh they sucked because of people trolling in the middle or racing to get your desired position. I can't imagine those two things being terribly hard to fix...
It happens a lot, it's a known issue. Not every time though, less than 50%. But enough that something needs to be done about it. Super frustrating especially with these slow menus as everyone has to back out(always back to the hub for some reason), then re-enter the drop-in dressingroom, then search again.
So obviously lots of work would need to be worked out to stop such things.
You mention nowadays you have enough friends to play club etc. I am assuming many or at least some of these friends were a result of meeting people in drop in lobbies. I met guys 10 years ago in the lobbies that are my good friends now, we play other games etc. I even ended up meeting one and working with him for a summer.
That wouldn't have happened without lobbies.
There is definitely a happy medium here. The lobby chat would need to be changed so that you can't spam. We already have some pretty intense language filters so I can't see language being much of a problem. People will always find ways to circumvent the censoring I'm sure... but to get rid of that system instead of work on it is a mistake.
Especially with the dwindling numbers these days. This game needs a community HUB of sorts. It thrived when we had lobbies.
Of course they should not be as they were (although I'd still welcome it to be honest) but these little tweaks here and there could make lobbies and drop ins bussle again.
My friends and I played so much more club back when lobbies were around. You meet and connect with people that much easier.
So in my opinion lobbies = more clubs starting up as well.
Honestly the only downsides I can think of (the spamming, sitting in the middle, race to position) can all be rectified rather easily.
I definitely met friends in lobbies. I've mentioned that multiple times. Guys I met from the first month EASHL was live. I've traveled cross-country to see them several times. I've been to their weddings, birthdays, etc. The thing is, I could have also met them in the current system. We met because of playing the game together. Not because we saw each other in a lobby and thought that person looked like they'd make a good friend.
There's nothing wrong with preferring the old lobby system. I'd gladly welcome it back as long as it was improved and I didn't have to deal with racing to my position and trolling was greatly reduced.
You wouldn't have to deal with lobbies at all, you could stick with your beloved Matchmaker.
The more options the better.
I'd rather see just one lobby for everyone. I think multiple ways to join drop-in games is just going to complicate things. I'm mostly in agreeance with you though. As long as my main concerns that I mentioned are addressed, it doesn't matter if we have the old system or the new one. Neither system is going to make me play drop-ins more. What would do that is having the old attribute system back as I'd get back to grinding out games when I didn't have friends on for club matches. That is what got me playing drop-ins a lot more than I do now.
I agree that you can still make friends. I've met a couple of new players over the last year or two that are now staple players in our group. But the fact remains it was much easier and people tended to do this a lot more when there were lobbies and players became familiar with eachother. There was more of a community. You could easily recognize a player in the lobby and message them or join them. Nowadays everything is so impersonal that even if you have a great game with some randoms, most of them just move onto the next game, ignoring any invites or messages of "gg another?"
The lobbies allowed people to become more familiar with one another and the community. Not to mention it would allow the leagues and clubs an easier avenue to recruit new players.
This was when lobbies were hidden in the menues as well. Can you imagine a new revamped lobby system that everyone was aware of? I strongly feel it would breath new life into drop ins, clubs and leagues as well as improve the matchmaking.
More over, I have noticed a drastic reduction in people using their mics and communicating since the lobby system has gone. Again, I attribute this to there not being a community HUB.
There is simply no downside to the lobby system outside of those problems you mentioned which presumably are an easy fix.
You mention that only a few people are requesting this but I know everyone I've ever played with miss the lobbies, and even more people were probably just not aware that they existed (hidden) and/or are newer players that started playing after they were removed.
Anyways, I'm sure everyone would be glad to have them back, or to try them for the first time. Surely there isn't a ton of resources or time required.
If they can spend however much $$$ and time on Snoop Dogg commentary -which by the way is absolutely cringe worthy and Snoop should be embarrassed if he cared at all- surely they can spend some time and rebuilding the online community.
Edit: one large drop in lobby would definitely be the way to go, agree there as well
That's a good point about seeing names in the lobbies. You don't have everyone on your friends list so it was good for seeing who was on and looking to play. I'm sure I'd miss that again if I were playing hundreds of drop-in games each year like I used to.
I really wouldn't mind having the old system back. It would be interesting to see if it resolves the issues you're mentioning. I know there are many that like drop-ins and giving them a better experience would be great. That plus having better anti-griefing measures and ways to handle trolls could possibly achieve that.